For this week's interview I spoke with Jay Smith (@jaynemesis) one of the top earning traders on eToro, a social trading platform where people can “copy” the trades of traders and a percentage of the money they earn goes to them. What’s interesting about Jay is that while doing this he’s also openly left wing as he’s a Green Party voter in the UK, a social democrat, a vegan, and owes a bit of his success to trading cryptocurrencies since 2013. 

During the interview we spoke about how he became a trader given his political beliefs and working class background, his thoughts on how the cryptocurrency space has evolved since he first started trading them, and whether there is anything that he thinks the left can learn from his experience. 

I feel like I don’t even have to tell you all what’s going since you probably all know, but it looks like people across the political spectrum are banding together to buy GameStop stock to make a hedge fund go bankrupt as revenge for the financial crash of 2008. Unfortunately the interview was recorded before all the craziness started so I didn’t get to ask Jay’s thoughts, but you can find some his thoughts on his twitter here.

If you’re joining in on the fun, keep in mind what’s going on is not some sort of revolution and is largely a battle between different segments of the bourgeoisie with some lucky working class people sprinkled throughout. However, if you really believe that buying stock in GameStop, AMC, etc. is some sort of signal for the distaste of Wall Street, then you can’t say that buying cryptocurrencies isn’t either. (Not investment advice.)

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ICYMI I've written a book about, no surprise, blockchains through a left political framework! The title is Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It and is being published through Repeater Books, the publishing house started by Mark Fisher who’s work influenced me a lot in my thinking.

The book is officially published and you use this linktree to find where you can purchase the book based on your region / country.