Comment on Digital Crime in the 21st Century” by R. A. Kofsky and the Investigating of Poshmark’s Twitter Account

The posts apparently made by Kofsky stand in stark contrast to Vance’s own statements related to drug crime. Since being elected to the Senate, he has promoted himself as a leader in keeping drugs out of the US and advocated the use of the death penalty as a punishment for drug dealers. During the Republican National Convention this summer, he talked about his mother’s drug addiction, and his book that discussed it, and rose to prominence as the author. He also argued that Democrats are letting drugs cross the border from Mexico.

Before working for Vance, Kofsky worked for the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee and as a policy adviser to Securities and Exchange Commissioner Mark Uyeda. The crypto industry has seen Vance as an ally since he ran for Senate in the 2022 election and then disclosed that he personally owned more than $100,000 in Bitcoin. Gary Gensler has been criticized for his approach to regulatingCryptocurrencies multiple times. Over the summer, Vance circulated a draft bill that would remove much of the authority the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have over governing digital currency. The bill was called an industry-friendly piece of legislation.

In one of the posts, Kofsky shared a video of Vance at a Senate hearing and provided a number of other pieces of identifying information. That information, paired with a Poshmark account using the same username and an image of Kofsky as its avatar, were two of the big bread crumbs that helped me confirm Kofsky was behind the account.

After WIRED contacted Kofsky for comment, some of PsychoticMammal’s posts about drugs were deleted, and their Poshmark avatar was changed to a picture of characters from the Star Wars movie Attack of the Clones. Parker Magid, a spokesperson for Vance’s Senate office, provided a statement from Kofsky.

WIRED: Why Crypto Coins Should Not Be Formed in the Early Stages of the Trump-Vance Crypto Co-Venture

It’s not the average newsletter for politics. Makena Kelly and the WIRED Politics team help you make sense of how the internet is shaping our political reality.

Both the Trump and Harris campaigns have made efforts to win over the crypto community in recent months. Just this week, Trump’s crypto co-venture with his sons Eric and Don Jr. launched, but only a small number of the firm’s crypto tokens were purchased, primarily due to the website crashing in the middle of the launch. According to WIRED reporting, only 8,500 people participated in the coin’s presale and collectively purchased 750 million of them.

The Harris campaign was apparently spooked by the fact that the ethereum industry favors the Trump-Vance campaign. Whether they’re afraid of turning off wealthy tech donors or ostracizing crypto voters (if those exist in any meaningful metric), Harris formally announced her support for the technology this week as part of a new initiative to protect Black men who have invested in these assets.