In brief
- Nigel Farage said that "vast amounts of funny money" printed by governments are pushing people toward Bitcoin.
- The British politician and leader of the Brexit Party added that it's "crucially important" to get into crypto during the coronavirus pandemic.
- He also called Bitcoin “the ultimate anti-lockdown investment.”
Nigel Farage, British politician and leader of the Brexit Party, proclaimed that "it could be crucially important that you get your minds around crypto, and what it means" during an interview with “Crypto Revolution” author Sam Volkering, published on November 27.
“It’s the subject everyone’s talking about,” said Farage. “From the poorest to the richest in the land, one of the conversations that are going on is about cryptocurrency. The reason is all too obvious: it's that governments are, through this pandemic, creating vast amounts of funny money, debasing currencies, and people are scared about what this means for their money, their investments.”
Previously, Farge has expressed his dissatisfaction with the UK government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. At the beginning of the crisis, Farage stated that “protecting us all from an epidemic should be prioritised over the economy” and lambasted Boris Johnson’s herd immunity strategy.
When the lockdowns were finally enacted in the UK, Farage changed his tune, asserting that “the cure is worse than the disease.” At the time, he also announced the rebranding of the Brexit Party into Reform UK and campaigned against lockdowns, calling them “cruel and unnecessary.”
As Decrypt reported, many financial experts have cited the coronavirus pandemic as one of the main driving forces behind the current price rally of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
“2020 has been turbulent for everyone, but for the crypto industry, it will be remembered as a defining opportunity,” said Casey Taylor, vice president of network and development at venture capital firm Digital Currency Group, in October. “The industry is not only intact, but saw validation and strong growth.”
Additionally, many governments around the world took unprecedented measures to soften the pandemic’s impact through financial stimulus packages—essentially beginning to print a lot of “funny money,” as Farage put it, placing their national currencies at risk of devaluation.
Thus, perhaps it’s unsurprising that Farage’s anti-lockdown sentiments eventually led to him going “full Bitcoin.” A day before the interview, Nick Hubble, editor at Farage’s Fortune & Freedom, also published an article titled “Should you invest in bitcoin?” In it, Hubble outlined the basics of crypto investing and noted that Bitcoin’s “many benefits only truly apply under certain conditions.”
“Now I am rather pessimistic about our own economy and the future of lockdowns over the next year. Which means Covid-19 may well bring bitcoin use to the UK. We might soon have reason to bother with bitcoin; a crisis or crackdown in the traditional financial system,” Hubble wrote.
Recently, Farage also called Bitcoin “the ultimate anti-lockdown investment”—so quite a logical choice for an anti-lockdown party.