How Cryptocurrencies Are Seizing 1st Amendment Freedoms for Creators

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble__, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Headlines and critics aside, cryptocurrencies represent more than speculative assets or quirky payment systems. They are tools of civil liberty. As economist F.A. Hayek observed, monetary choice precedes all other freedoms.

Thanks to digital assets, people everywhere can assemble, or more accurately, associate around common interests without ever meeting, knowing, or even trusting each other.

Digital Communities Built on Code

This is not mere theory. Real people have put this into practice in several powerful ways.

Dogecoin began as a parody in 2013. Since then, the “joke” currency has funded Olympic athletes, sponsored NASCAR drivers, and built a worldwide movement around generosity and humor. More than the coin’s utility, the spontaneous assembly of people united by nothing more than a shared smile and a wallet address drove this meme coin into the top 10 of all cryptocurrencies.

Global token-gated community Friends With Benefits (FWB) shows the other side of the spectrum: purposeful collaboration.

Thousands of members use FWB’s token as a key to governance, meetups, and creative projects. Legal scholar Lawrence Lessig once noted, “Code is law.” In FWB, code enforces association itself. The tokens verify membership, participation, and belonging without state oversight.

Offline, experiments like Ithaca Hours prove the point. This local paper currency in 1990s New York allowed residents to rally around a shared unit of value to strengthen community ties. Unfortunately, Ithaca Hours hit geographic and analog limits. Bitcoin and its successors, on the other hand, exploded across borders while operating at internet scale.

Association As a Constitutional Right

In 1937, the Supreme Court recognized that freedom of association, even for unpopular views, is protected under the First Amendment via the Fourteenth. Modern legal scholars extend this logic beyond physical assembly. Shared ideals, coordinated action, and anonymity all fall under the same protection.

If association is constitutionally protected, then the ability to organize around a medium of exchange is integral to that freedom. Angela Walch, a law professor who studies cryptocurrencies, writes that blockchains “reconfigure how we trust and coordinate.” That shifts the locus of power from governments to voluntary networks, which is nothing less than a modern update of constitutional assembly.

The Importance of Money in Civil Affairs

Money is more than transactional grease. It is a binding agent.

As Hayek argued in Choice in Currency (1976), monetary freedom shields citizens from favoritism, inflation, and political manipulation. Decades earlier, Ludwig von Mises framed economic choice as a universal human activity that transcends class, race, or creed, a thought echoed by Milton Friedman.

Cryptocurrencies operationalize these values. By separating money from the state, they aim to restore what James Buchanan called “the rules by which people choose to associate.”

Bitcoin and its successors are not just economic experiments. They are associational experiments, empowering platforms where communities form, scale, and endure.

How Civil Liberty Expands: Scale, Scope, and Accessibility

Cryptocurrencies are global and permissionless. Anyone with an internet connection can participate. They enable:

• Scale: Millions of currencies and tokens now in circulation serve communities from gamers to farmers to activists.
• Scope: Smart contracts and DAOs facilitate governance, pooled resources, and cooperative ventures across borders.
• Accessibility: Permissionless systems include the unbanked, the marginalized, and the politically excluded.

The Giving Block, a crypto fundraising site, notes that cryptocurrencies protect human rights under authoritarian regimes by enabling people to transact and associate outside state control. In practice, this means dissidents, non-government organizations, and even niche hobbyists can sustain themselves without asking permission or risking retaliation.

The Future of Digital Assembly

From Ithaca Hours to Bitcoin memes to AI-driven DAOs, the story is one of expanding continuity: private money enables free association amplified by digital tools.

Government money centralizes and constrains; cryptocurrencies decentralize and diversify.

The future of assembly lies not in state-granted permits but in human choice backed by code, cryptography, and community. Using cryptocurrency isn’t just speculation. It is a practical embrace of the First Amendment’s spirit: the right to freely associate with whomever you choose, however you choose, and wherever you are.

This essay was first published on The Advocates website.

Posted Using INLEO