Let’s Drive The Bitcoin Bullet Train Right Through South Carolina

This is an opinion editorial by Dennis Fassuliotis, founder of South Carolina Blockchain Inc. and co-founder of South Carolina Emerging Technology Association, Inc.

Why, you may ask? For starters South Carolina is on the verge of a financial revolution so to speak in terms of building a confluence of support for emerging blockchain technologies that can transform our state.

That’s important because although the industry was recognized in 2020 by Senator Tom Davis (R-Beaufort) with a state Senate resolution, the pandemic forced the nascent state advocacy group to postpone its first major statewide conference. However, now armed with a four year history of Wyoming style legislation, S.C. Senate Resolution 1158, and funding from the General Assembly for the State Treasurer’s Office to assess the role of digital currency literacy and emerging technologies for the benefit of the state, we have a clear direction and high-speed rail heading into the station via the member driven South Carolina Emerging Tech Association (SCETA). The SCETA Bitcoin-centric education and policy initiative SCBlockchainWeek.com is planned for the first week of October, and State Treasurer Curtis Loftis will be one of several noteworthy speakers to share their visions about how digital currency education, Bitcoin policy guidance and economic investments in Bitcoin can positively impact the Palmetto State.

Some may say that’s a lot of window dressing but not yet a first class ticket, or simply “Cool,” but here’s the next junction. In a letter to the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), our state treasurer and 21 other state financial officers opposed the proposed environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure rule. Loftis also supports West Virginia State Treasurer Riley Moore leading the charge against big banks pulling back on credit for new projects in West Virginia and other states where the needs of the state don’t quite match up with the woke mentality of stakeholder capitalism whose interests and goals often conflict.

Taking on financial powerhouses like BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan may sound foolhardy — but not if you’re a Bitcoiner. Wasn’t it Jack Mallers who said at Bitcoin 2022 that he can see a future where these dinosaurs become extinct if they don’t wake up to the open-source financial revolution? While the critics of this position may say this will cost taxpayers more money, I say principals are expensive. Protecting constitutional rights is not a dollars and cents or even a bitcoin and sats issue. It’s all about the cost of freedom and freedoms lost today are gone forever tomorrow.

Since when did the cost of freedom outstrip the risks of maintaining the status quo or the mainstream movement? Tell it to the colonists that founded this nation and look back on the economic freedoms that created the behemoth banking industry that is at the heart of the decentralized financial movement. We can be critical of the past and how we got here, but redistribution of wealth in 2022 and beyond is about free markets, education and hard work, not handouts.

So for Bitcoiners there’s a clear path forward. Identify the states and leadership within them that already support common causes and court them as allies in the fight against woke politics. Let’s sync our narrative with state financial officers that have taken up the gauntlet to fight against the tyranny of stakeholder capitalism espoused by the WEF, the financial institutions that align with them and fight back together. This isn’t about proof-of-work versus proof-of-stake. Just look at the policy of regulation by enforcement being waged by the U.S. Treasury against open source projects like Tornado Cash or the overreach in securities enforcement by the SEC. As an industry, we are at a crossroads. This is about survival, not letting politicians or regulators pick winners and losers in technology, and thriving once we insist on…