Webathon

If You Support the Right To Own and Trade Bitcoin, Support Reason!

We’ve been making the case for stateless money and financial freedom since Day One. Donations are being matched today!

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bitcoin | Lex Villena; Dragan Andrii | Dreamstime.com
(Lex Villena; Dragan Andrii | Dreamstime.com)

There are just two days left in Reason's annual Webathon, the one week a year when we ask our online readers to support our award-winning journalism with fully tax-deductible donations (go here to make yours!).

Your support makes everything we do possible—all the articles, videos, podcasts, events, and media appearances in which we act as your voice in public debates about the size, scope, and spending of government. So give a little less to the IRS and a little more to the magazine of "Free Minds and Free Markets"! Scroll down for a great swag list (for what it's worth, my favorites are the "Abolish Everything" T-shirt and the Reason blanket) and donate now.

The challenge grant of $30,000 from Daniel Shuchman has now been met and we are happy to announce a new challenge grant of $25,000 from Kerry and Helen Welsh. That means every dollar you donate turns into two until this new challenge grant is reached!

This past year has been absolutely crazy, with the weirdest presidential race in U.S. history, including the incumbent dropping out via X (come on, man!), assassination attempts, and one of the most spectacular political comebacks ever. And next year will almost certainly be an even wilder ride, as Donald Trump promises to whittle down the reach of the government even as he pushes tariffs and mass deportation.

But maybe the biggest story of 2024—and 2025, too—is something that runs roughshod over and around government: bitcoin, which recently cracked the $100,000 mark and gained a whole new aura of respectability. Reason has been covering this digital gold since its inception and our coverage exemplifies our principled, libertarian approach to journalism.

Earlier this year, major investment firms like BlackRock and Fidelity started hawking their own bitcoin ETFs and politicians such as Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming (a Reason Interview subject) gained new traction calling for a strategic bitcoin reserve. Reason has been lauding bitcoin's challenge to "state-controlled money" from the beginning:

Through the Soho Forum, we sponsored a debate in 2018 between bitcoin bear Peter Schiff and bitcoin bull Erik Voorhees that has pulled over 1 million views and remains a great introduction to why this alternative asset is going to be around for the long haul (and why it threatens the establishment):

Over the years, we've talked with major figures in the bitcoin world like Michael Saylor, whose company MicroStrategy owns the single-biggest known cache of bitcoin, Broken Money author Lyn Alden, and Balaji Srinivasan, the super-investor whose bold prediction of bitcoin going to a million dollars didn't come true (yet). We explored how the dark web site Silk Road demonstrated a controversial use case for bitcoin and have covered and participated in the annual Bitcoin Conference since its inception. When FTX, the shady crypto exchange run by Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), hit the skids, we talked with Kraken founder Jesse Powell about the need for investor due diligence and how SBF tried to rig regulations in his company's favor.

We debunked the phony argument that bitcoin was a disaster for the environment in articles and videos by Alex Gladstein of the Human Rights Foundation, and we showcased how bitcoin provides hope and money for people in authoritarian countries. Jim Epstein's Cypherpunks Write Code video series explored the prehistory of cryptocurrency and Brian Doherty went "In Search of the Elusive Bitcoin Billionaire" in 2018. Senegalese app developer Fodé Diop explained how bitcoin-enabled smartphones might help developing nations break free of what he calls "monetary colonialism":

Just last week, Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe talked with crypto podcaster and investor Nic Carter about how Trump's embrace of digital assets affected the 2024 election. Last time around, Trump was antagonistic toward bitcoin and crypto; this time he's all in (in fact, I had a memorable encounter with him at Pubkey, a bitcoin-themed bar in Greenwich Village this fall). Better yet, he's named innovation-friendly Paul Atkins to head up his Securities and Exchange Commission, a giant improvement over outgoing chairman Gary Gensler, who did all he could to throttle crypto.

Our coverage of bitcoin—like our coverage of everything—isn't uncritical boosterism, of course. Just a few weeks ago, staffer Katarina Hall reported on her unsuccessful attempts to use bitcoin in El Salvador, the first country to adopt it alongside the U.S. dollar as legal tender. And our resident song parodist Remy not only mocked Dogecoin, he had fun at the expense of tech bros with "Bitcoin Billionaire," a rap that has generated over 1.6 million views:

All of this is to say: If you find bitcoin and cryptocurrencies interesting—and if you've made some gains from them in this rally—think about supporting Reason. Since 1968, we've been talking about ways to make the world better, freer, and more fair, all without necessarily dragging government or politics into the matter. Bitcoin is the latest, and possibly greatest, development on that front in a very long time.

Here's the swag list:

  • $50: A Reason Plus subscription—ad-free browsing, early access to the magazine, commenting privileges, and exclusive events.
  • $100: All of the above PLUS a Reason-branded phone wallet.
  • $250: Everything at the $100 level PLUS an Abolish Everything T-shirt to spark conversation (or arguments) wherever you go.
  • $500: All of the above PLUS a cozy Reason-branded blanket.
  • $1,000: All the perks of the $500 level PLUS an invitation to Reason Weekend, a Torchbearer pin, and a podcast shoutout.
  • $5,000: All previous rewards PLUS lunch with a Reason editor in Washington, D.C., or your moment of fame as Donor of the Week on the podcast.
  • $10,000: Everything up to $5,000 PLUS a ticket to Reason Weekend (for first-time attendees).

Donate now and help make 2025 a fantastic year for Reason's journalism—and our ability to bank however we want.