Author Of 'Bitcoin & Black America' Terminated By CoinDesk For 'Kanye Was Right' Tweet After FTX Collapse

Crypto champion Isaiah Jackson is the author of “Bitcoin & Black America” and was a contributor to bitcoin and digital currencies media platform CoinDesk– that was until Nov. 11. Jackson said he was fired “on his day off” for a sarcastic quip he made in a Twitter thread about the FTX collapse. The quip said, “Kanye was right.”

CoinDesk, for which Jackson did a show called “Community Crypto show” on the bitcoin and crypto space, tweeted, “In response to a tweet from Isaiah Jackson that made an anti-Semitic, hurtful statement, CoinDesk is immediately terminating his contract for his weekly Community Crypto show on CoinDesk TV.”

Crypto expert Jackson published “Bitcoin & Black America” in 2019. Through his book, his podcast, “The Gentlemen Of Crypto,” and his company, KRBE Digital Assets Group, Jackson is educating Black people on how to invest wisely in bitcoin.

Jackson has since come out and declared that he is not antisemitic, and the quip wasn’t as well.

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“I denounce antisemitism and stand with all my Jewish people,” he tweeted.

He also added that cancel culture has become humorless and gone too far.

On the podcast, “The Gentlemen of Crypto,” which he co-hosts, he made a video statement about the situation.

“I put an entire thread….and went through all the connections that were happened with FTX exchange,” including all involved in the collapse. He noted that at the end of the thread, “I put ‘Kanye was right,'” he said, and added, “Sarcasm doesn’t translate well in text.”

Jackson said he also learned, “the feeling I got is that free speech is not free.”

He also reached out to CoinDesk to get an explanation about his firing.

“I couldn’t really get an explanation as to how it was harmful to them…being fired for it was, again it was something that happened with Kanye. Kanye got canceled, Kyrie, Dave Chappelle, his SNL standup got called out by the Anti-Defamation League. It seems as though ifyou mention anything towards that group, you will have problems.”

Jackson was referencing the fallout hip-hop entrepreneur Kanye West experienced following comments he made on social media and in interviews that were deemed antisemitic. Professional basketball player Kyrie Irving was suspended from his team, the Brooklyn Nets, after he shared a link online to a film that has been called antisemitic. On Nov. 12, comedian Dave Chappelle joked about the Kanye situation during an appearance on “Saturday Night Life,” and his jokes have now been called antisemitic by some.

Jackson said he is taking the firing “on the chin” and that many free speech advocates have reached out in support.

“Almost anything you say today can be called hate speech,” he noted.

Isaiah Jackson, photo: Twitter