Pink Economy Orientation: Why LGBT Crypto Dream Doomed To Failure
Daria Piotrovskaya
The LGBT community is increasingly asserting its rights; in some countries, this is considered the norm, in some it causes aggression, and in others it is laughable, but it is important to understand the real power of sexual minorities. The volume of the "pink' economy is about $4.6 trillion a year, which is more than Germany's GDP. If LGBT people were a separate country, they would take the 4th place in the world according to this criterion. The main financial idea, which broadcast LGBT: loyalty to minorities can earn, and intolerance — to lose. This applies to business, macroeconomics, and politics.
A Chinese entrepreneur, founder of a consulting company in the field of blockchain services Stephane LAURENT said in an interview Bitnewstoday.com: "there Is a clear relationship: the more attention is paid to the protection of human rights in the country, the higher the level of economic development of the country. I believe that the empowerment of minorities has a positive impact on the world economy."
Monetization of ambitions
After reviewing more than 120 countries in the period from 1990 to 2014, the researchers came to the conclusion that inclusion is directly correlated with the GDP per capita. Even the existence of one additional right for minorities in the country is associated with an increase in GDP of $1,694 per year, and the presence of all additional rights gives a statistically significant effect of $8,259. On the contrary, discrimination weakens what is called human capital, and it causes economic damage to countries.
For example, India, according to the World Bank, due to homophobia annually loses $32 billion — up to 1.7% of GDP. In 2018, the country legalized same-sex relations — it will be interesting to see how this figure will change.
Meanwhile, LGBT people have every reason for serious economic ambitions. According to surveys, 85% of non-traditional couples consider themselves financially stable.
The annual costs of the ten-million community in the United States in 2015 amounted to $1 trillion. When elections are held, certain parties or candidates often fight for the support of the LGBT community.
LGBT seeks to monetize their unconventional love and gain influence - on the government and business. And the giants of the market, chasing the profit, seek to show themselves as tolerant as possible - to the extent that the legislation allows. So, while in China, where at least 70 million representatives of sexual minorities live, they did not prohibit the demonstration of unconventional love on the Internet, enterprises appealed to the "pink" audience in marketing campaigns: Taobao organized competitions for LGBT couples; Alibaba, Kuaididi, Adidas posted videos in social networks in their support. These trends are more subtle now. As for the "pink" startups, if they do not actively advertise their values, they have no problems with the authorities. And large companies cannot be ignored. Thus, in a homophobic country business on homosexuals earns, and the government does not interfere, as taxes consistently replenish the Treasury.
"Any cultural or social community can benefit from its own cryptocurrency, even if it is just a means to spread money within that community. The LGBT community is no different — does it need its own cryptocurrency? Perhaps it is not only compliance with the overall economic framework that can define the community as a growing economic force and thus lead to political empowerment. Another advantage is privacy. Blockchain payments can remain anonymous in countries where the LGBT community faces discrimination," said Jason FERNANDES, founder of the blockchain platform for smart contract integration.
Rainbow dictatorship
States claiming to be developed are afraid to appear undemocratic and promote tolerance as an integral attribute of the country's development. But where did tolerance itself come from and why did it become an instrument of political influence? American mathematician and trader, world-famous author Nassim TALEB in the book "Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life" introduced the term "minority dictatorship". According to the researcher, if the irreconcilable minority reaches the level of about 3-4%, it can dictate its conditions. It is at this level that LGBT people find themselves, which allowed them to become a political force and actively develop new economic territories.
As an illustration of the thesis of dictatorship, the example of Britain is illustrative. At the insistence of minorities, there is no longer heard gender-colored treatment of "ladies and gentlemen" — only greetings like "good morning, everyone" in the underground of London. The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office proposes the UN to replace the concept of "pregnant woman" with "pregnant person" in the documents of the organization. Scotland is not far behind - the rector of St. Mary's Cathedral in Glasgow calls to pray that Prince George when he grows up, became gay: "the Royal wedding would help to solve everything quickly."
LGBT community has little support for politicians, athletes, influential people - they want those if not changed orientation, then at least turned into a rainbow flag. A photo of Trump with this symbol of LGBT people in October 2016 flew all over the media. However, this is not surprising if we recall OBAMA's statement: "Protecting the rights of sexual minorities is a priority of US foreign policy."
American sociologist Paul CAMERON is convinced that LGBT aggressively imposes his ideology: "If a person dares to speak critically about gay, he will immediately be ostracized. People have no right to express indignation about the fact that gays are allowed to teach in schools, to adopt children. Why group with unconventional sexual preferences dictates conditions to the rest of the society? I think we are talking about a grotesque human rights ideology. Liberals fought for the rights of african americans and then switched to gays. And although Obama claimed that his goal is "the liberation of oppressed gay brothers," in fact, LGBT people do not get equal, but preferential rights. The American Constitution guarantees us freedom of speech, but all scientists blow in one pipe."
The dream of digital unity
The ambitions of the LGBT community are looking for embodiment in digital technologies. The first cryptocurrency for sexual minorities, GayCoin, was brought to the market by Portuguese George Lawin in 2014, but this did not cause a stir among the target audience, although it was planned that the digital token would "promote equality, nurture diversity and destroy hatred." This cryptocurrency is "deader than the dead" - as users wrote in the same year. The project was rebranded in 2018 with the slogan "LGBT revolution 2.0", renaming it to PROUD money. In addition to the same idea of creating a single payment tool for the LGBT community, the cryptocurrency was associated with a Dating app and allegedly endowed with investment potential. Today, one Proud is estimated at $0.005.
Over the past four years, there have been other "pink" cryptocurrencies: Gay-money, Rainbow, LGBiT-token. None of the projects came out on ICO, tokens are not traded on world-class crypto-exchanges. The LGBT Fund, a non-profit organization from Hong Kong, announced the issue of the LGBT token in February and invested $1 million in the study of the ICO launch, but in October it changed its mind to make an initial coin offer. The idea, as explained in the Fund, is to unite the ecosystem of the symbolic economy, and not to create another competing currency. However, it looks like this: attempts to create a token that will unite representatives of minorities arise in one or another part of the world — and go out like flashes of pink dawn.
"Pink" bitcoin will not rise
Here we can draw an analogy with the global cryptocurrency market: out of 2090 tokens today, only about 25% have at least some impressive capitalization. According to analysts of Goldman Sachs, most of the cryptocurrency will disappear in the next 5-10 years. The multiplication of tokens erodes the market capitalization, hinders its development. The same happens with the attempts of LGBT people: 4-5 coins got fame, of which only PROUD was noted in the rating of Coinmarketcap, and even then in 2035 place.
The Bibles of "pink" digital assets are similar as twin brothers. For example, most of them are about the following goals: the allocation of resources to combat repression, inequality; the ability to verify and protect their identities; demonstration of the economic power of LGBT people. However, "the use of cryptocurrencies will not turn the LGBT community into an "Autonomous state" — as well as people who prefer to use credit cards or cash," says Jason FERNANDES.
A large part of the gay-cryptocurrency tied to social networks — in creating LGBT-token is involved 25 millionth Hornet, in the launch of LGBiT-token is marked the site of Sugar (editorial note: the social network for gay men). The trend is explained by the General LGBT message: "Together we are power." However, if the minorities were truly United, they would create one cryptocurrency for all, realizing all the stated goals. It is worth noting that the largest social networks for gay Grindlr and 27-million Blued have not yet expressed the idea of switching their users to cryptocurrency.
The economic voice of LGBT people is growing, but it is difficult to discern the meaning of this cacophony. The number of the community is large, but it is dispersed around the world, there is no clear statistics. A trillion-dollar "pink" economy can not gather in a snowball: its resources appear as precipitation of varying degrees of density in different parts of the world. In its upward movement, the "pink" dollar can reach an economic plateau.
Martin JANDA, blockchain and IT security expert from Germany, said: "I do not believe that the LGBT token will be used as money and that it will be attractive for investment. I believe that it will be useful only to support these groups and "one-time" projects, but will never be used as widely as other cryptocurrencies. They don't need this token because other cryptocurrencies are better known and solve all the same problems that LGBT people want to solve with their cryptocurrency. This token can only be successful if it has many followers within the community. But the number of these followers is limited by the percentage of those who trust the crypto. I think that this will not be enough to create its own economy," concluded JANDA.
But there is a deeper reason for the possible failure: LGBT people are torn by internal contradictions. Not only externally, but also within the community, discrimination is strong — it can be compared with a multi-ethnic multi-confessional state. For example, preferences, which receive gays, not extend on lesbians; not all adherents same-sex love accept bisexuals. The unity of LGBT people is only external. Therefore, there is no pooling of efforts to create a cryptocurrency that would become an analog of bitcoin in the "pink" economy.
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