But Austrian economics, due to its proponents, is closely tied to right-wing libertarianism. Murray Rothbard is often seen as the father of the "anarcho-capitalism" that became characteristic of both the right-wing Austrian movement and later the Bitcoin community, and was infamously incredibly racist. He preached "voluntary" racial segregation (akin to Richard Spencer's "peaceful ethnic cleansing") and made claims based in scientific racism.
There's no doubt that many of Bitcoin's earliest proponents were ancaps, and bitcoiners often show reverence to Rothbard and other controversial figures from the von Mises school. And there's no doubt that this culture still survives today, hence this sort of article.
Libertarianism as a political philosophy isn't inherently racist, it's simply 18th century liberalism extended to consider how a society could function without any central government at all.
That means racists can be attracted to the philoshophy, they (unwisely) believe that freedom from government diktats means freedom to do anything they like, and that doing so would suddenly work out for them (including behaving in all ways that most people consider immoral/idiotic, such as racist behaviour).
This isn't such a problem, social outcasts (like racists) have a tendency to stick together, and a free society just makes it easier to identify those you don't want to associate yourself with. The modern "ban" on racist behaviour doesn't work at all, racists simply talk racism when no-one else is listening, and make racist decisions disguised with some other intention.
Genuine free speech and freedom to act is for everyone, including reacting to the behaviour of others. It's far better to have racism out in the open (instead of self-censored), pretending unenforceable laws work just makes the problem worse. You can't magically make someone renounce racism by attempting to force their mouth shut. But you can try to reason with them, and that's only possible if people feel confident they can talk freely without being punished.
And sorry but massive ROFL. Which ethnicity is Bitcoin racist towards? Or in favour of? Satoshi was famously just a fake name, no-one knows if Satoshi was 1 eskimo, 5 indonesians or a 20-strong multi-ethnic team of people. All we know is, Satoshi wrote good English, and not such great C++.
If Bitcoin was racist, how did it become used by anyone all over the world? There've been multiple translations of the Bitcoin Core software for many years. If people want to contribute code for Bitcoin Core (the software the majority of the Bitcoin network runs on), there are no ethnicity checks. It's a simple case of whether your coding or design ideas are good or not. Many contribute code using pseudonyms, just as Satoshi did, there's no way of knowing which ethnic group they belong to.
This is like saying "vegetables are racist to arabs, because they refuse to grow in the desert" or "TV screens are racist, because not white".
