Why Bitcoin Matters:
We are heading into the 21st century with a 16th-century system of money and a 20th-century system of banking. Our financial system is plagued with politics and restrictions, which are unsuitable for the types of problems our planet is currently facing. The government ultimately controls the money system to promote nationalistic ideas instead of focusing on improving commerce for citizens. The system is slow, fragmented, inefficient, and full of mistakes.
Central Bank Monetary Outcomes
Central Bank EraFragmented Inefficient and full of mistakesThe 1990sIndia economic CrisisSwedish banking CrisisAsian Financial CrisisRussian Financial CrisisMexican Financial CrisisEcuador Financial crisis2000'sTurkish Economic CrisisArgentina Financial CrisisVenezuela Financial CrisisUruguay Financial crisis*United States Financial CrisisGreek debt crisis2010 - 2020European sovereign debt crisisUkraine financial crisisBrazil financial crisisTurkish currency Crisis
Weaponizing Financial institutions
For developed countries, financial systems are full of surveillance, and state controls unbeknownst to its citizens. White house administrations often weaponize financial entities like the IRS to leverage political control. In 2010, Wiki leaks, an anonymous news media, released video footage of U.S. military operatives opening fire on a group of men in Baghdad, IraqThe video was controversial enough for government powers to order all U.S payment providers to cut off funding to Wikileaks. In a joint effort, Mastercard, Visa, Paypal, Western Union, and Bank of America completely cut off Wikileaks, reducing their funding by 95%.Wiki-leaks was able to survive through donations by a censorship-resistent form of payment, that's Bitcoin).Hyperinflation: extreme money printing
(When The Venezuelan government inflates the currency and it now cost $10,000 bolívar's to wipe your ass)From the advent of government issue'd paper-money backed by "nothing", the global financial system has expereinced 57 verifiable hyperinflation events. American economist Steve Hanke's extensive research on hyperinlaftion suggest the events comprise of a 50% increase in consumer price's over a month. Between 1921 and 1923 the German Mark, the currency of Germany's existing republic, experienced a hyperinflation event where the exchange rate to dollar's was 4-Marks:1-dollar, then skyrocketed to a ratio of 4,000,000,000,000-Marks:1- dollar. Not even a wheelbarrow full of money could buy a newspaper. Many experts believe the rise of Hitler was somewhat inlfluenced by the financial destruction of Germany's Republic. When your currency collapses and your citizens are starving to death, the natural instinct is to rebel against the system who failed you.In western developed countries, people are more interested in the applications of super fast, super secure, super private, micro-payment internet money. In developing countries, people are interested in Bitcoin because it serves as a survival mechanism (especially in the event government confiscates all your money because they can or how about when the banks default on all the deposited and your life savings is gone). The question in other countries is not “Why Bitcoin?” It is “How Bitcoin?” It gets much worse for underdeveloped nations where hyperinflation destroys all wealth and billions of people are unbanked and completely excluded from participating in the world economy.
Privacy or Surveillance
Cash has been deliberately taken away as a means of transactions since the 1970’s when our currency was taken off of the gold standard and backed by central banking fiat currency. Yet this move is just another authoritarian surveillance & control trend of the century. Money is the language in which societies coordinate and express value and where cash is the last mechanism to private expression. If you lose the ability to have privacy on those issues, you also lose other freedoms. Privacy protects against freedom of speech abuses. If you strip away financial privacy, then your ability to exercise, other fundamental rights are severely eroded. It takes a push of a button to constrain your rights. Even without a phone, you can be tracked. These are critical aspects of freedom. Governments gain enormous political power through these mechanisms by penalizing democratic expression. This is called “Financial surveillance.”
Credit cards enable surveillance in 3 ways.
- Network associations: a history of transactional-data-sets connecting you to others.
- Content: goods & services purchasing history
- Geographical location: MAP history of transactional locations
Financial Surviellience
Hong-kong protesters consistently experience financial attacks from centralized authorities. China has developed and implemented the “social credit score,” where there are persecutions for pre-crime and thought crime, and where they determine how you should behave by scoring it as "dissent," then changing the level of freedom you have. There is, and has been, a deliberate attempt to eradicate cash transactions so that everything can be inside a closed and surveilled system. People often think Bitcoin is a choice between analog or digital currency. The real choice is between two digital currency futures. On the one hand, you have government-controlled, completely centralized, completely surveilled end-to-end banking and finance. In this future, It will only take one bad election to seat an authoritarian regime that will swing their sword by turning off the opposition's finances. In this future, if you go to an opposition protest, you will not be able to transact at the grocery store. In the other future, there will be many digital currencies, of the people by the people. These currencies will have different degrees of privacy and flexibility while enabling choice. There will be no more paid dues to the middleman, and there will be no more serving up your private data to the highest bidders, including the governments who can and will turn off your rights. Simply put, financial activity is at the center of human social activity and provides a basis for social behavior. Bitcoin, through blockchain technology allows the individual to have a security layer of privacy and the ability to own and control their money.Source: Andreas Antonopoulos: (2020 January 3). Why we need Bitcoin. [youtube] retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpcZ1DvCAf81945 Brenton Woods: The Great-Reset
Following the devastation of WW-2, nation-states gathered at Brenton Woods to reset the global financial system. They agreed to peg all currencies to the U.S. Dollar who would be pegged to the Gold standard. They also created the International Monetary Fund, IMF for short, who would engage in central planning operations for stabilizing prices, supporting national-state treasuries, and influencing all other central banks. The goal was basically to prevent a Global Financial Crisis by making the United States Federal Reserve the head-bank and all other Government Central banks, regional banks. Gold was already illegal to own in the United States (1933 Executive order to confiscate all Gold via Roosevelt), so the Fed was able to store up as much gold as possible into the reserve vault and issue Green-back paper currencies of an equal amount.The dollar would become the world's reserve-currency and the world's money supply, printable-paper, backed by gold-reserves. The temptation for governments to lend more paper-dollars than gold reserves was just too tempting, especially for "Justified War, and the Welfare of the people." By the late '60s, the secret was out, the elephant in the room was too obvious. The U.S. government inflated the money supply so drastically, it became impossible to redeem foreign-nation-states' gold. France and Germany attempted to retrieve their gold from the U.S. Treasury but it was too late.
1971 The Nixon Switch
Nixon was a genius, instead of staying true to the Breton Woods agreement, re-deeming the gold, he exited the Gold-standard. This means the U.S. broke their promise to re-deem paper for gold. Who needs standards right? Who cares if the money supply is artificially growing, diluting citizens saving, inflating prices, and stagnating real-wages? If you own the printer it doesn't matter what they think because you can print weapons of mass destruction out of thin air at the cost of your unsuspecting citizens. Selling baby powder for cocaine is just what the U.S government did... because they could.Aug 15, 1971 - The price of gold remained fixed from Jan 30, 1934 until August 15, 1971, when President Nixon announced that the United States would no longer convert dollars to gold at a fixed value, thus abandoning the gold standard for foreign exchange. (https://www.usgoldbureau.com/gold-confiscation).
2020: The Great Switch to Digital Currencies
97% of the world's money supply is not physical-cash, but credit. There aren't vaults full of cash, but electronic computers generating digital numbers in the form of credit. Believe it or not, cash will be completely digitized by 2025: no more paper, no more coins. The Central Banks are fully prepared for the transition into digital currencies. This decade you will see commercial banks default on deposits and savings. But that's okay because Central Banks will be right there to refund your deposits and savings. They will offer stimulus to individuals through a digital wallet application; to opt-in, you’ll have to accept the terms and conditions, which are also tied to your privacy and personal freedom. Traditionally, commercial banks are one step removed from government control, but central bank digital currencies are government control. Say goodbye to privacy; you'll only be able to purchase what they say you can purchase. They will weaponize the currency by mandating vaccines, changing your interest rates, changing your tax rate, or simply determining whether you can get on an airplane or not. The money will be connected to your passports and your identity. George Orwell wrote about the progressive movement of governments toward a surveillance state of totalitarian control. What he didn't see is, THE FIST OF GOD...the Bitcoin standard.Source: Simon Dixon. (2020 November,14). The Bretton Woods reset. [youtube]. retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7XtpvPUqls
Which system of money will you choose?
Central Bank Digital CurrenciesBitcoinNeeds-PermissionParticipationPermission-lessCompletely CensoredCensorshipCensorship-ResistenceCentralized-systemControllDecentralized-systemConfiscation at WillProperty-rightsUn-confiscatableClosed to PublicAccountingPublically-VerifiableUnlimited-supplyScarcityFixed-supply (21million)Subject to changeMonetary-policyPredictable