Meet Aarika Rhodes, the Pro-Bitcoin, Pro-Basic Income Congressional Candidate

Aarika Rhodes, a full-time simple schoolhouse teacher successful Los Angeles County, has made bitcoin a cardinal plank successful her bid for Congress.

She’s moving to outseat Republican Brad Sherman, a long-standing congressman who has been vocal astir his disdain for cryptocurrency. For Rhodes, bitcoin is simply a instrumentality to code economical inequality and amended fiscal access.

“If we’re going to lick poverty, we person to commencement being innovative astir it,” she said successful an interrogation connected CoinDesk TV's "First Mover" connected Wednesday. “And I deliberation the Lighting Network offers that,” referring to the second-layer scaling instrumentality for the Bitcoin network.

Although she is simply a agelong shot, Rhodes is portion of a caller people of politicians who are making crypto programs portion of their mandate. They are enticed by crypto’s potential, the industry’s fervent “single-issue voters” looking to backmost immoderate knowledgeable campaigner and, yes, adjacent the imaginable for crypto donations.

It’s not Rhodes’ lone unconventional economical idea. She told CoinDesk she besides supports a cosmopolitan basal income (UBI), oregon a government-run payment programme to springiness radical tiny currency payments with nary strings attached. In fact, for Rhodes, bitcoin and UBI spell manus successful hand.

For one, Bitcoin and UBI are some unfastened systems – meaning that each would beryllium escaped to entree them. For a distributed web similar Bitcoin, that means anyone tin nonstop payments oregon clasp the integer asset, BTC. UBI, meanwhile, is designed arsenic an alternate to traditional, means-tested payment programs.

Some person argued that a “bitcoin standard” would rein successful authorities spending, due to the fact that determination is simply a hard headdress of 21 cardinal BTC that volition ever spell into circulation. But Rhodes disagrees with the hypothetical thought that bitcoin would bounds a government’s quality to spend.

"I deliberation the misconception of a cosmopolitan basal income is that successful bid to person it, you person to people money," Rhodes said.

She’s hardly unsocial among bitcoiners. On Feb. 2, Rhodes co-hosted a Twitter spaces with a slew of participants, including Block CEO Jack Dorsey, who discontinue his occupation moving Twitter to walk much clip gathering Bitcoin usage cases.

Rhodes said the 2 met anterior to the lawsuit connected Zoom, wherever they discussed poverty, including the contention surrounding Bitcoin and UBI. Rhode’s run looks to find a mode wherever the 2 tin coexist.

Coming from her acquisition teaching successful backstage and nationalist schools, Rhodes feels the mode authorities spending is executed is lackluster.

According to her, successful bid to code poorness successful a meaningful way, reducing programs that aren’t moving efficiently and allocating funds toward giving radical a baseline income is the archetypal step. In the aforesaid vein, Dorsey supports the UBI strategy, and has invested implicit $55 cardinal successful the U.S. and overseas via his Start Small initiative, a foundation initially created for COVID-19 relief.

At the precise least, beryllium it bitcoin oregon UBI, digitizing wealth makes sense. According to Rhodes, 75% of radical experiencing homelessness person a cellphone.

Though Rhodes says she is inactive learning astir the crypto manufacture and her program isn’t defined conscionable yet, she sees bitcoin arsenic a mode to scope economical justice.

“My priorities are prioritizing our young radical and modernizing our acquisition systems and implementing fiscal literacy successful schools,” Rhodes said.

Now, Rhodes is focused connected winning the superior successful bid to person a statement with Sherman.

“I deliberation what he’s done successful Congress is not capable for being successful determination for 25 years,” she said. “You person a clump of young freshmen and sophomore Congress members that are passing much authorities than these semipermanent incumbents. I deliberation there’s a large appetite for change.”