The Bloomberg New Economy Forum gathered notable figures in November of 2021 to speak about a range of themes centred around power. One of the topics that Hillary Clinton mentioned during this discussion was cryptocurrency.
“One more area that I hope nation-states start paying greater attention to is the rise of cryptocurrency — because what looks like a very interesting and somewhat exotic effort to literally mine new coins in order to trade with them has the potential for undermining currencies, for undermining the role of the dollar as the reserve currency, for destabilizing nations, perhaps starting with small ones but going much larger” — Hillary Clinton
The statement is steeped in irony. It’s amazing how an exotic coin creation scheme has the power to undermine the power of the dollar and destabilize nations. So on the one hand she plays down the value/significance of these coins by trivializing the creation process, then proceeds to say that these same coins have the potential to undermine the role of the reserve currency. If cryptocurrencies are so trivial, then how weak are fiat currencies and nations themselves if they can be destabilized by them?
What Hillary may not have calculated while uttering her words, is that this was not a damnation of cryptocurrencies; it was an endorsement.
A Massive Endorsement
Love or hate Hillary Clinton, it does not matter. She remains a symbol of the established political class. So remembering that bitcoin began as a peer to peer cash system free from state control, a statement like the one Hillary ushered is an endorsement of epic proportions. It doesn’t matter which side of the isle you’re on, nor who actually was the one to say it, what matters is that bitcoiners all over the world have somewhat clear evidence that the ruling members of our society are aware, thinking, and concerned about the presence of bitcoin.
First they ignore us. First they laugh at us. Then they fight us. Then we win. — Mahatma Ghandi
I constantly return to this quote to see if it lends any insight into where we are today with respect to governmental acceptance of bitcoin. The answer is that we’re in multiple stages at once. Different countries are in different places. Take Turkey for example who ended the year with inflation at 36.08%. The Turkish president met with El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele last week, with one of the topics of discussion being of course; what to do about money?
The cat is out of the bag with respect to the collapse of fiat currencies. It’s happening at varying speeds all around the world, and as I stated in my earlier newsletters, countries are looking to the “Experiment in El Salvador” for answers. With bitcoin’s growth clocking in at about 200% year over year, and currencies declining steadily at various rates above 5%, even presidents can do the math on this one.
Countries can literally, no longer afford to ignore Bitcoin.
Retake the Control we Once Had
I wrote earlier about the role of gold in the economy when it is the reserve asset. To say it again.
The role of gold is to act as a means for the people to hold the government accountable for poor spending behaviour.
If the government spends in a way that you dislike, you could take your bills to the central bank and redeem them for gold, reducing the country’s gold reserves. Low gold reservers, low faith/trust in government, its policies, and its spending choices.
The reason why bitcoin is so destabilizing to nations, is that the people have progressively lost this power to hold governments accountable since around 1913. Bitcoin is a peaceful protest wherein the people re-seize the power to hold the political class accountable to their decisions. The people are just taking back the power that they once had.
Destabilize not Destroy; Restabilize to Repair
The aspects of bitcoin that are destabilizing, is that it delocalizes economic power, decentralizes financial infrastructure, dematerializes our financial institutions, and redistributes the units of currency around the world. Hillary was right to say that cryptocurrencies have the potential to destabilize. That’s exactly what they’re doing. But I would argue that this is highly positive disruption that gives back the economic freedom that was eroded for the last 109 years (1913 est. of the Federal Reserve). So bitcoin is destabilizing the current system, and actually re-stabilizing and repairing the system we had before.
I do not want to see the society we’ve collectively created for ourselves destroyed. I do not wish to see things destabilized to the point where we see death and destruction. But I do want change. I hope that the change is quick enough to matter, and slow enough to not bring about our doom.
Regards,
Keegan