Beware of the Crypto Mirage

By Kavisha Pillay

Cryptocurrency has long been marketed as a decentralised alternative to a broken financial system. A rebellious tool against Wall Street excess. A digital reimagining of a fairer financial future. But this seductive narrative crumbles under scrutiny. 

Far from subverting capitalism, crypto has been intensifying its worst traits: inequality, opacity, and speculation over substance. It doesn’t offer emancipation from systemic financial failures, instead it is a speculative detour that ultimately serves the wealthy, the early movers and the technologically privileged. 

The mythology of crypto is a clever one. It exploits the legitimate public anger over exclusionary banking systems, monetary policies captured by the elites, and decades of neoliberal policies that have privatised public wealth and socialised corporate risk. In this context, blockchain-based currencies appear as grassroots alternatives. It’s a digital revolt that promises economic justice via peer-to-peer autonomy. 

Across the globe, it is estimated that 1.4 billion people remain unbanked and excluded from traditional financial systems due to geographic isolation, poverty, or a lack of documentation. Within this context, cryptocurrency emerged with a bold promise to empower these individuals by offering a decentralised, accessible alternative to banking. Through blockchain-based currencies, proponents argued that anyone with a smartphone could send money across borders, store wealth securely, and participate in the global economy which would be free from the gatekeeping of banks or the instability of local currencies. This vision tapped into a genuine need, fuelling crypto’s allure as a tool for financial inclusion.  

But there is nothing anti-capitalist about the libertarian crypto-bro evangelists that have emerged, who launch digital tokens with no intrinsic value and pump them through influencer culture. There is no emancipation in algorithmic scarcity,  and there is no solidarity in a system where financial gains are determined by who enters first, and who exits before the crash. 

We’ve seen this logic before, the logic of financialisation, where profit is decoupled from production, and wealth is built through speculative assets, high-frequency trading, and artificial scarcity. Much of crypto follows this pattern, converting social anxiety into speculative opportunity. It thrives on mistrust in institutions while often reproducing the asymmetries of power it claims to oppose.

Additionally, crypto’s promise of empowerment often masks concentrated wealth. A 2021 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the top 10,000 Bitcoin addresses held roughly a third of all the cryptocurrency in circulation. This is a digital hierarchy, where early adopters and large holders dominate.

In the Global South, crypto is pitched as a path to financial inclusion, bypassing exclusionary institutions. In regions like Venezuela or Zimbabwe, where hyperinflation and economic sanctions erode savings, cryptocurrencies can serve as a hedge for some. But volatility, regulatory gaps, and power asymmetries temper this promise. The collapse of Luna and FTX left investors, including those in developing nations, with staggering losses. And so questions emerge: who underwrites these digital dreams? Who arbitrates fraud? What happens when liquidity vanishes?

We are asked to trust code instead of constitutions, but code is not neutral. It is written by humans, funded by venture capital, and embedded in governance systems that can remain opaque and unaccountable, even if blockchain’s ledger offers a degree of transparency. 

At the Campaign On Digital Ethics (CODE), we believe technology must be judged by its actual impact, not its marketed potential. Much of the crypto economy has accelerated financial instability, undermined environmental sustainability through energy-intensive mining, and enabled rent-seekers to operate under the banner of innovation. Yet, dismissing crypto entirely ignores its role in addressing gaps in access for the billions who are unbanked, or its potential to create decentralised systems that empower communities when designed with accountability.

The solution to late-stage capitalism will not be techno-libertarianism. It is solidarity redistribution, institutional repair, and an honest reckoning with power. 

Crypto is not inherently revolutionary, but neither is it merely a mirage. When harnessed with accountability, its underlying technology could complement broader efforts for economic justice, provided that we prioritise people over profits.

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