Tim Selwyn: Crypto Bro’s or Crypto Ho’s? Seymour and McKee’s Crypto Shows

It must be an Act Party sense of humour to have brought out their crypto currency policy in time for this year’s New Zealand Gambling Harm Awareness Week. Maybe it just coincided with the local crypto con, CryptoWinter26 NZ conference, at Queenstown last week by accident.  Leader, and Red Dwarfcos-play favourite, David Seymour, has been promoting the party’s increasing commitment to full-scale, post-apocalyptic libertarian monetary theory on the podcasts with the crypto bros, while his deputy, Nicole McKee, has been at the digital gang-bang and thrown NZ on the block chain.

Seymour was on the NZ Investor podcast hosted by a NZ-based American. Americans festoon every crypto story.

 

 

Seymour spoke of people wanting to invest in crypto being treated unfairly. A human rights abuse. But what mad gambler would be investing in an intangible piece of blockchain code at this late hour of human consciousness? None of his arguments carried any weight and he didn’t seem overly convinced of them either. He was confused and flaky, arguing that New Zealanders are against crypto because they have a tall poppy complex. (I told you it didn’t make any sense, but hang in there for a few hundred thousand reasons that may explain his position).

And Seymour admits he doesn’t really have a clue about crypto too; but let’s all go on that risky, chaotic path of certain boom and bust towards that post-apocalyptic libertarian future that you vote for when you party vote Act. Let’s all go dance in the minefield less trodden.

How will the future NZ look if everyone could just avoid tax? David uses Rimmercoin instead of NZD, so he can buy meth precursor and mail order machine guns without paying GST! It sounds like paradise perhaps if you’re contemplating gladiatorial glory, chained to the front of a Holden Torana and heading down the Desert Road to the Thunderdome – not so handy if you just want to pop out for a cheeky bottle of Pinot Gris without being decapitated in a Bollywood version of A Clockwork Orange.

It was at the 20 minute mark of this shallow fluffing when I realised Seymour’s Yank accent had – subtly – reappeared. He was beginning to develop – or regress to – an American accent. The one-time Canadian was slipping into North American. Every New Zealander hates that.

The timing and the personnel suggest the Act Party is the mover behind the Cabinet last week reversing themselves on the banning of crypto currency ATMs.  Last year Cabinet was adamant crypto ATMs would be prohibited in the Anti-Money Laundering Bill. Presumably this was because it is obvious that the users of the ATMs would be 95% nefarious characters doing 95% nefarious things. Why the change? Does the coalition government think that legalising the mechanism for illicit transactions will make the transactions themselves lawful?

Act MP Nicole McKee is in charge of the crypto moves under the aegis of her associate role in the Justice portfolio. They seem very interested in making sure that both crypto profits and crypto ATMs are protected. We should ask ourselves: what are the problems they are trying to solve? None of it is any benefit to anyone legitimate. Here is what they are touting from their policy page:

ACT will unlock New Zealand’s potential with six reforms:

• Establish a clear legal and tax framework for tokenised securities and real-world assets. This makes it easier to divide, issue and transfer ownership in productive assets. New Zealand needs clear rules so businesses and investors can use these tools with confidence. 

• Create clear, high standard rules for qualifying payment stablecoins to unlock faster, lower cost cross border payments and innovation, with strong protections for consumers and financial systems. 

• Establish a supervised financial innovation sandbox where innovative businesses can trial new financial products before full licensing. Start-ups should not be burdened by the same regulatory rules as large financial institutions. This change unlocks further innovation for start-ups and keeps innovation and investment here at home in New Zealand. 

• Introduce a simple 12-month bright line for qualifying long term personal investment in digital assets. If you hold a qualifying asset for at least a year, your gains won’t be taxed under this rule. This gives everyday investors certainty and simplicity while keeping professional trading and business activity fully taxable so the system remains fair. 

• Introduce a sensible tax exemption for low-value purchases made using digital assets, removing unnecessary tax compliance for everyday users. Inland Revenue should focus on significant taxable activity, not trivial transactions that create more paperwork than revenue. 

• Review current rules that we know are creating barriers to banking and payment infrastructure for legitimate, properly regulated fintech and digital finance businesses offering their services in New Zealand. This will unlock New Zealand’s access to financial infrastructure, protecting fair access to banking and payments.

No legit person, entity or anyone would need or want this pseudo currency, and having this muck circulate inside the banking and payments system will be corrosive. So what is driving this march into the financial fields or Armaggedo?

Follow the money? Follow the crypto!

The answer is who, not what. Queenstown-based ex-American tech guru and crypto bro Brian Cartmell has given $700,000 in this election cycle so far to NZ political parties – equally to National, NZ First and Act and some, more recently, to Top.

I can think of several hundred thousand reasons now why the Cabinet might have reversed itself on crypto ATMs and I can think of a further 200,000 reasons – more reasons than any other person donating reasons to the Act party – why Act would be launching a policy so pro crypto.

I’m not going to claim I understand anything more than the scant knowledge Seymour has of crypto, but I still prefer the traditional monetarist theories of rabbinical numerology over whatever the hell crypto is. Even the name isn’t quite right – it is really pseudo currency, a parasitical currency that needs the solidity and convenience that already exists in real currencies to complete the actual transaction.

From Cryptocurrency NZ:

The report from the conference notes the overwhelming necessity of making crypto accessible in cash, or else what is the point. Tax is a secondary issue. If a crypto holder can’t get it out into the real currency of the real world what value is it? It is worthless.

See, we already have inventions called currency and banks and ATMs – there is ne need for crypto anything and the effect from inside the banking system will be the same as the derivatives that were similarly hailed as innovative until they popped in 2008 in the Great Financial Crisis. A Great Crypto Crisis is the only guaranteed thing about imbedding a crypto system and Act’s pumping this stuff at the behest of big crypto money is sure to curse the fruit.