Bannon and the Bitcoin candidate

Presented by ACT|The App Association: How the next wave of technology is upending the global economy and its power structures

Apr 22, 2022 View in browser   By Ben Schreckinger Presented by With help from Derek Robertson Brock Pierce, CEO of Helios, speaks at the North American Bitcoin Conference. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images A longshot independent bid by crypto mogul Brock Pierce to capture a seat in the U.S. Senate has been getting help from an unexpected corner of the political universe. Pierce, a former child actor and serial entrepreneur, filed a statement of candidacy last fall in the race to succeed Vermont's eight-term Democratic senator, Patrick Leahy. Though he's a longshot at best, Pierce's candidacy offers a window into the ways that money and ideas from the cryptocurrency world could start to scramble U.S. politics. Pierce has been presenting himself as a "true independent," name-checking Bernie Sanders (who has endorsed Democratic Rep. Peter Welch in the race) while promoting clean energy and business development. Behind the scenes, several former aides to Donald Trump, including Steve Bannon, have been assisting the anti-establishment effort, according to FEC records and interviews with five people close to the campaign, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press. Pierce, who served as a director of the non-profit Bitcoin Foundation and co-founded the controversial stablecoin Tether, is far from a front-runner. He made a quixotic 2020 presidential bid, has never held office, and has little connection to Vermont. His representatives did not respond to several requests for comment, and it remains unclear how committed he is to mounting a serious Senate effort. But his campaign is one of the more colorful efforts to convert newfound crypto riches (Forbes estimated his crypto wealth to be as much as $1 billion in 2018) into political power. Though crypto moguls tend to be techno-libertarians, and Pierce is no exception, his MAGA hires illustrate the extent to which they have been ideologically flexible in building political alliances. While taking informal advice from Bannon, his campaign has retained the services of former Trump White House aides Boris Epshteyn, Steven Cheung, and Stefan Passantino, according to FEC records and interviews with people close to the campaign. In addition to hiring a team of right-wing populists, Pierce has cultivated close ties to Eric Adams, the moderate Democratic mayor of New York, and has considered hiring progressive operatives for his Senate run. His campaign website touts progressive-sounding causes, such as his philanthropic work with indigenous people and his passion for sustainability. Pierce's MAGA links began with Bannon, who worked for Pierce in the mid-aughts at an experimental venture that sold virtual accessories inside online multiplayer games (think of it as a very early metaverse business). Late last year, as Pierce began eyeing the Senate seat being vacated by Leahy, he engaged in a series of conversations with Bannon, according to two people close to the campaign. Bannon, according to one of those people, advised him to go on an all-out spending blitz in the small state. And, in a sign of Bannon's own unpredictability: He told Pierce, if he wins, to caucus with whichever party ends up in control of the Senate.   A message from ACT|The App Association: Open and fair competition in the digital marketplace drives our members' success, but the proposals in the Open App Markets Act will hinder our small business members' opportunity for continued prosperity. https://actonline.org/2022/04/04/give-small-developers-a-chance-not-higher-barriers-to-entry/   Not a game The Etro Fashion Show during the 2022 Metaverse Fashion Week. | Vittorio Zunino/Getty Images What do people actually want from the metaverse? VR technology faces the same challenge the personal computer once did: While adoption by gamers and tech enthusiasts might be necessary to push a nascent technology into the mainstream, it's definitely not sufficient. And when it comes to the metaverse, those elusive non-gamers aren't going to be brought into virtual spaces simply by promising they'll provide a more pleasant venue for meetings that would otherwise be held on Zoom. "Non-gamers are a problem," said Shane Tews, a nonresident senior fellow at AEI who studies the metaverse. "Maybe a fashion show option would get me to buy a virtual option mirror." A new report from the marketing research firm National Research Group shines a little bit of light on the consumer trends that might someday make VR or AR tech as common in American households as the personal computer or smartphone is today. (And yes, virtual clothes shopping earns a mention.) A few key takeaways: 71 percent of headset owners describe themselves as "early adopters of new technologies." 72 percent of users say they've used them to play games, far more than the next use case (watching films or TV, at 42 percent). Just 13 percent of those polled said they'd be interested in using a VR headset for more than an hour. Exactly half of all parents polled said they wouldn't want their child to use VR technology for more than three hours in a single week. The results have pretty clear implications for a theoretical metaverse — first, it's unlikely that users will want to spend vast chunks of time with vision-blocking goggles strapped to their head, meaning that less-intrusive augmented reality technology will be a crucial part of merging the analog and digital worlds. Second, the appropriateness of this technology for children will be a subject for significant debate, meaning that much like its technological predecessors, VR's widespread adoption will likely be dependent on some kind of demonstrably educational or kid-safe use case. — Derek Robertson Afternoon Snack Happy Earth Day — how about taking a closer look at it? Planet, a San Francisco-based Earth imaging company, has unveiled plans for a new group of satellites that will photograph much of the Earth up to 30 times per day at high resolution to provide near-real-time imagery for its users in government and the private sector. What are the actual implications of gathering that much imaging data? I called Nathaniel Raymond, a lecturer at the Jackson Institute at Yale who uses satellite imagery in conflict contexts, and he said they were… well, big. "I can't overstate what a big deal this is from a geospatial perspective," Raymond said. "As we look forward into the next three to five years, we will have more micro satellites that can collect more of the Earth, at will, more quickly, and with better resolution." Raymond described how the technology, which he noted was similar to that deployed by Maxar's Legion satellites, will enable its users to keep a better eye on, for example, conditions in a combat zone like Mariupol in Ukraine, or on plant growth and ice levels, by the day, as opposed to by the week, as with previous satellite imaging technology. (Planet currently provides images of the Earth on a daily basis at a resolution that's about 10 ten times less detailed than the new satellites will provide.) That could mean users might find themselves in the unfamiliar situation of having too much visual data about the Earth on their hands, providing new insights that analysts can't yet predict. "As Biggie Smalls said, 'mo' money mo' problems .' With this, it's 'mo' data mo' problems,'" Raymond said. "And the quality of the data in terms of what you can extract from it is also going up, so the tempo is up, volume is up, and the granularity is up in the legibility of insights." — Derek Robertson   A message from ACT|The App Association:   The Future In Five Links Read a rare interview with Web3 maven Chris Dixon. The U.S. arm of the world's largest crypto exchange is opening its own lobbying shop. If you or someone you love has a crypto trading problem, there's a five-figure rehab option for that. Surprise! Another nine-figure crypto heist. a16z is starting a crypto research lab with some high-powered academics. Stay in touch with the whole team: Ben Schreckinger (bschreckinger@politico.com); Derek Robertson (drobertson@politico.com); Konstantin Kakaes (kkakaes@politico.com);  and Heidi Vogt (hvogt@politico.com). Ben Schreckinger covers tech, finance and politics for POLITICO; he is an investor in cryptocurrency. If you've had this newsletter forwarded to you, you can sign up here. And read our mission statement here.   A message from ACT|The App Association: When the largest sellers on the app stores, with multi-billion-dollar valuations, come to Congress with proposals to reshape the mobile marketplace to suit their needs, policymakers should be rather skeptical. We urge Congress not to sacrifice consumers' most important privacy and security protections–and with them, the competitive prospects of small app companies–in order to further advantage the app stores' biggest winners. https://actonline.org/2022/04/04/give-small-developers-a-chance-not-higher-barriers-to-entry/     Looking for in-depth and actionable technology policy news? The Morning Tech newsletter is exclusively available to POLITICO Pro subscribers, please visit our website tolearn more about the benefits of a subscription.       Follow us on Twitter Ben Schreckinger @SchreckReports Derek Robertson @afternoondelete Konstantin Kakaes @kkakaes Heidi Vogt @HeidiVogt   Follow us

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