The news that cryptocurrency is "supplanting" Wall Street’s privileged position on the American Right is less of a revolution and more of a lateral move in the long, nauseating annals of human parasitism. For decades, the ritual was simple and, in its own way, almost touching: the suit-clad ghouls of Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan would whisper sweet nothings about deregulation into the ears of Republican lawmakers, and in exchange, those lawmakers would ensure the tax code remained a Swiss cheese of loopholes. It was a dignified, traditional form of corruption. But now, the temple of Mammon is being renovated. The mahogany desks are being chopped up for firewood, and in their place, we have beanbag chairs and the frantic, sweaty energy of men who genuinely believe that "HODL" is a valid geopolitical strategy.

Let us analyze the players in this tragicomedy. On one side, we have the banks—the "privileged fossils" of the fiat world. These are organizations that managed to crash the global economy in 2008 and, instead of being sent to a penal colony or at least forced to work in retail, were handed a trillion-dollar gift bag by the very taxpayers they bled dry. They represent the old school of greed: slow, steady, and backed by the threat of state violence. On the other side, we have the crypto lobby. These are the individuals who took the concept of the 17th-century "Tulip Mania," added a layer of incomprehensible code to make it look like math, and convinced a significant portion of the electorate that a digital picture of a bored ape is a store of value superior to gold. It is a battle between the dinosaur and the vulture, and frankly, I am rooting for the asteroid.

The American Right, always on the lookout for a new master to serve while screaming about their rugged individualism, has found its new digital paramour. The flirtation began with a shared hatred of "centralization," a term that Republicans use to mean "anything the government does that doesn't involve building a wall or subsidizing oil companies," and which crypto bros use to mean "the fact that I cannot currently launder money without a paper trail." It’s a match made in a very specific, very shallow circle of hell. The GOP has realized that the traditional banks have become "woke"—a term that now encompasses everything from a bank having a rainbow logo in June to refusing to fund a private mercenary group. In response, the Right has pivoted to the blockchain, a technology that promises a libertarian utopia where the only thing stopping someone from stealing your life savings is your ability to remember a twenty-four-word seed phrase you wrote on the back of a coaster.

The threat to the banks is real, but not because crypto is fundamentally "better." It’s because crypto is more shamelessly naked in its pursuit of absolute, unregulated chaos. Wall Street at least has to maintain the facade of stability. They have buildings with marble columns; they hire people who know how to tie a Windsor knot. Crypto offers the raw, unfiltered thrill of the casino without the annoying cocktail waitresses or the possibility of a free buffet. For the modern American politician, who has the attention span of a fruit fly and the moral compass of a weather vane in a hurricane, the allure is irresistible. Why wait for a bank to lobby for a five-year tax break when a crypto founder can send you a million dollars in USDC before your morning coffee has even gone cold?

Historically, we’ve seen this before. It’s the transition from the old landed gentry to the nouveau riche industrial barons. The old money hates the new money because the new money doesn't know the secret handshakes. The new money hates the old money because the old money is currently holding all the levers of power. But for the rest of us—the unwashed masses watching this pathetic wrestling match from the nosebleed seats—the result is the same. Whether your currency is backed by the full faith and credit of a collapsing empire or by the collective delusions of a million Reddit users, the end goal is your total subjugation to the whims of the wealthy. The players change, but the game of musical chairs always ends with the middle class sitting on the floor.

The tragedy, of course, is that the "liberation" promised by the crypto-pivoting Right is just another layer of the same grift. They speak of "financial sovereignty" while handing the keys to a new set of digital overlords who are even less accountable than the ones they’re replacing. At least you can protest outside a bank; try protesting outside a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) when the smart contract "accidentally" drains your retirement account into a wallet in the Seychelles. The banks are terrified, not because they care about the economy, but because they’re losing their monopoly on the art of the steal. And the crypto industry isn't "democratizing" finance; it’s just moving the robbery to a different neighborhood with better Wi-Fi.

In the end, we are witnessing the inevitable collision of two different brands of intellectual bankruptcy. The Right’s embrace of crypto is the final admission that they have no actual policy goals beyond the enrichment of whatever donor class is currently shouting the loudest. And the banks? Their whining about "financial stability" is the height of hypocrisy from the people who turned the housing market into a global pyre just for the fun of it. So, let them fight. Let the suits and the hoodies tear each other apart. The only certainty is that whichever side wins, the rest of society loses. It’s not a revolution; it’s just a change in the management of our collective ruin. Welcome to the future: it’s exactly like the past, but with more electricity usage and significantly less dignity.