Big crypto wants the one thing it can’t buy: your vote

Judgment

Crypto holders and voters must decide whether to lend electoral support to the largest crypto intermediaries or withhold it to preserve a technology-first stance; backing them risks ceding the decentralization claim.

Basis

Berkeley Law lecturer Hermine Wong, writing in CoinDesk, argues that “Big crypto wants the one thing it can’t buy: your vote” and that “Our loyalty has been to the technology.” She frames this election as a trap if the biggest intermediaries are allowed to claim that loyalty for themselves. The implied mechanism is legitimacy: holder votes are a scarce signal, so if holders back large intermediaries, those firms can present themselves as the voice of crypto and shape election outcomes, while technology-first holders lose influence over the agenda.