# another lost opportunity

Source: https://x.com/TBSocialist/status/2095116449098420343
Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/another-lost-opportunity?index=0x6a981ee1c220bedb2fbf50305bca53f755c69108ec4e165c4545e6a749a21db681b78e75
Submitted by misha on 2026-09-02 UTC, 1 upvote, 0 comments

## Summary

Crypto donations would help Autistici / Inventati, an Italian antifascist webhosting group and hacker collective, after US government sanctions, yet the group still refuses them. Its bank account was blocked, its PayPal account was terminated, and it lost its main domain name from DNS. In 2013 the group decided against bitcoin because it is not really anonymous, it pays in euros and dollars, and it dislikes its association with financial speculation. Privacy tools such as RAILGUN or Zcash and stablecoins could answer those concerns, it is argued.

## Article

i'm gonna go fucking nuts

some of you may have seen that the US government has imposed sanctions on "Autistici / Inventati" an italian antifascist webhosting group and hacker collective

their bank account has now been blocked and paypal account terminated which hurts because they run on donations and volunteers, they even lost their main domain name from DNS

seems like a really obvious case of accepting crypto for donations to at least smooth this over right?

apparently not

A/I had looked into bitcoin back in 2013 (13 years ago today) and concluded that they would not accept it then and therefore it seems will not accept it now

their reasons back then were because of

1) it's not really anonymous

2) they pay for things in euros and dollars

3) they don't like it's association with financial speculation

so to make this all clear, this antifascist group which is run by volunteers and has been targeted by the US government with no support from their own government or bank, is refusing to take any donations in (presumably) crypto because of it's 13 year old distaste for bitcoin whenever the current state of the technology is very different today and can easily answer their concerns listed via Ethereum or others

1) RAILGUN, Zcash or any other privacy protocols

2) stablecoins, they exist in USD and EUR

3) again stablecoins, you don't have to engage in speculation

there are obvious answers if one cared to look for them but somehow crypto has such a bad reputation that even if it's obviously something useful, A/I don't want to touch it

it just feels tactically short-sighted with a right wing italian government and overly compliant european banks, moralism does not seem like the right attitude to take

maybe i could be wrong and the only thing they need is hyperlocal support in cash or among their volunteers they have enough people with personal wealth and financial accounts that haven't been targeted as well to make up any gaps for a good while, but I'm doubtful that is a smart move to solely bet on that

this was all top of the dome writing but i'm left with a couple of questions

is Ethereum as a cypherpunk institution is failing to make their value proposition clear to the greater hacker world?

what would it take for so many of these left wing groups that are clearly at the moment far more likely to be targeted by the state to take and wield decentralized technologies for direct action?

how do we stop losing these opportunities?

i can say for my own experience and with my own groups in assisting those who are fundraising for families in Gaza, that crypto is working

i've reached out to them via mastodon since their irc web interface is down so maybe they'll listen

thanks for reading and yes i am still preparing for the new platform / podcast so bear with me, i've already recorded over a month of content so stay tuned