Discord, the platform long associated with gaming communities and crypto traders, has now become the unlikely stage for a political revolution in Nepal.
After widespread protests and the banning of major social media platforms, young protestors flocked to Discord to coordinate, deliberate, and even vote on who should lead the country next.
The “Youth Against Corruption” server, which quickly ballooned to more than 130,000 members, hosted multiple polls over the past week.
On Sep. 10, the group reached consensus. Sushila Karki, Nepal’s former chief justice, was chosen as interim leader. More than 7,700 votes were cast before Karki crossed the 50% threshold, reported South China Morning Post.
It’s because the outlet that wrote the article is a finance-based news outlet, which started talking more about crypto once it became popular because it allowed them to profit off the newer crypto boom instead of just off stock speculation.
They just sprinkle some non-financial news in like this sometimes because it drives clicks from people not explicitly looking for finance content, in the hopes they’ll stick around, and it allows them to capture views from crypto investors that otherwise would go to other outlets for general news events.
As someone formerly very invested into crypto as not just an asset but an ideological sphere, I can tell you that when you’re in what is very frequently just an echo chamber like that, everything feels like crypto to you. Any financial regulations are just the government trying to stop you from using crypto. Any trade deals between countries are just ways you can argue for a replacement of fiat currency with a cryptocurrency.
And any civil or economic unrest, such as what’s happening in Nepal, in which some people might turn to using cryptocurrency to escape any form of regulatory pressure is a perfect time to promote how everyone’s using crypto there now, and this is a turning point for the industry, so just keep buying more, keep holding, and keep promoting it to everyone you know. (this point in particular should be all too familiar if you ever try asking a Bitcoin bro what the practical use of Bitcoin is other than being majority speculation, as they’ll almost certainly discuss “unbanked” people in lower income countries, arguing why they need to use Bitcoin with higher transaction fees and a reliance on a phone or computer over just cash)