"Bitcoin culture, by nature, is anarchical and chaotic. It has to be, given the nature of Bitcoin itself and the people who adopted it: free-market libertarians who've gone all in on turning computer code into a form of money divorced from central banks, government intervention, and traceability. In short, it's the exact opposite culture of Washington, DC, home of the federal government, where everyone agrees that the American dollar exists and is worth X amount because the government says so."
"So it was a bizarre shock to K Street, the corporate lobbying heart of the nation's capital, when it was announced that Pubkey, a Bitcoin-themed dive bar from New York City, would open its second location in downtown DC - smack dab in expense-card restaurant territory. And that's to say nothing of the local city news sites. "Raise your hand if you plan to never set foot in there," wrote a commenter on PoPville, a popular Washington blog that chronicles local news and had broken the news of Pubkey's opening."
"Crypto has a highly controversial reputation in town, even apart from its general cultural reputation: the Biden administration had been aggressive in trying to curb the industry's growth, claiming that several major corporations did not have sufficient anti-money laundering protections in place. President Donald Trump's full-bore tilt in the opposite direction - dropping the Department of Justice's efforts to prosecute crypto crimes, pardoning several crypto executives who'd been found guilty of various financial crimes, making his own meme coin -"
Bitcoin culture is inherently anarchic and chaotic, driven by free-market libertarians seeking a form of money separated from central banks, government intervention, and traceability. That cultural ethos contrasts sharply with Washington, DC's institutional acceptance of government-backed currency. The arrival of Pubkey, a Bitcoin-themed dive bar, in downtown DC created surprise and backlash among local communities and K Street elites. Regulatory approaches diverge: one administration pursued stricter anti-money-laundering enforcement, while another favored deregulation, pardons, and symbolic crypto endorsements, which has pushed digital-token oversight into a deeply partisan arena.
Read at The Verge
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