Is “Gaza Riviera” a Use Case for Crypto?

It could help put a price on the probability of a policy outcome

President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu at the joint appearance at which the plan to make Gaza “The Riviera of the Middle East” was unveiled.

Since selling half a Bitcoin in September 2014 for the grand sum of $234, I’ve steered clear of cryptocurrency. I understand the appeal of what Hayek called “Denationalisation of Money,” and I harbor no ill will toward anyone who has prospered by moving some funds out of dollars and into Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Tether. But in terms of putting my own money in, I just haven’t seen the case for it. Right now it looks like a missed opportunity, though if some future administration launches a regulatory crackdown, perhaps I’ll be glad to have gotten my dollars out when I did.

My thoughts went to cryptocurrency, though, in considering President Trump’s plan to turn Gaza into what he called “The Riviera of the Middle East.” Investing immediately in a Gaza real estate venture presents a lot of regulatory obstacles. There’s no clear title to the land. There’s a lot of political risk. There’s execution risk in being able to obtain a site and get construction materials and labor in to build. Anyone promoting such a venture, even in the context of a not-very-aggressive Trump administration enforcement and regulatory environment, would hazard getting in trouble with a state attorney general or the Securities and Exchange Commission or even with the investors themselves, like some early-20th-century seller of Florida swampland.

But the regulatory hurdles in launching a coin are much lower, at least with a crypto-friendly Trump administration in power.