I recently came across a description of Bitcoin that I thought was particularly relevant to current public discourse. Bitcoin was called “The Currency of Decolonization”.
A particularly potent statement preceded it, “They can’t colonize Bitcoin”. Touché. Bitcoin is not a nation or a company. It holds no titles. Has no property. It doesn’t have a culture to scrutinize, or a people to enslave.
I think in order to really articulate why Bitcoin earns the title of “The Currency of Decolonization” we first need to discuss why currencies such as the Canadian Dollar (CAD), the United States Dollar (USD), the British Pound (GBP), and the Euro (EUR) are all currencies of colonization.
The Colonizer Playbook
One of the first things that a colonizing nation does when it is aiming to subjugate a population, is to destroy the local economics. The way to destroy the economy, is to destroy the money. There are countless examples of colonizers doing this to populations around the world to bring them under control. Let’s go through a few.
Kill the Bison, Destroy the Camanche
The picture below is an image of a pile of bison bones. The bison were central to the Camanche economy and way of life. The bison weren’t over-hunted by frontiersmen for sport or food. Bison were systematically targeted and eliminated after they were identified as being the central currency and commodity of the Camanche tribes of the great plains of “America”.
The Camanche singlehandedly delayed American “Manifest Destiny” (conquering of America from coast to coast) for at least 100 years after the establishment of the United States of America itself. It wasn’t until specific American Civil War generals learned the details of Camanche culture and economics that they discovered that Bison were central to their way of life. In essence, Bison were the vulnerability that when destroyed, would be the catalyst that would bring the end of Camanche rein over the great plains of middle America. Not a decade after the Great Bison Hunt, the Camanche were defeated, and America had nothing left in their way to stop them from colonizing the American continent from coast to coast.
Learn more in the book — Empire of the Summer Moon
Yap and RAI Stones
The original blockchain is not Bitcoin. Blockchain, or the underlying concepts behind blockchain were first implemented in a remote Micronesian island called Yap. The stones (pictured below) are called RAI.
RAI was currency on the island of Yap for hundreds of years. The island did not have access to metal and thus did not ever create coinage. Instead, they had a system of keeping track of who owns which RAI. Since the stones were so large and cumbersome, actually handing a stone from one person to another was infeasible, as each stone can weigh several tons. Instead, when a transaction was made between two individuals, everyone on the island would update their own copy of the ledger. Sound familiar? (this is how blockchain works).
RAI was Good Money
RAI was actually fairly good money. Here are some of the ways it inhabited the properties of hard money.
In order to create more, someone had to risk life and limb to travel to a nearby island, quarry stone, polish it, and bring it back to the island of Yap. In other words, they had to put in a lot of work. In this way, they were difficult to create and inflate.
Since RAI were too large and cumbersome to carry away, RAI were immune to theft.
The system for keeping track of who owns what RAI was decentralized and trustworthy.
The Downfall of RAI
The downfall of RAI was the result of modern manufacturing tools. When the island of Yap began to be colonized, they realized they could take advantage of the culture by easily quarrying and transporting new RAI to the island. The colonizers bought up all the goods worth having from the island, leaving its inhabitants with no goods and thousands of useless RAI stones. In other words, the people of Yap suffered hyperflation of their local currency at the hands of the colonizers.
Learn more about the story of Yap here.
Debt Enslavement
The last way that colonizers take over a region is by enslaving them with debt. If you can convince a nation to take on more debt than what you know they’ll be able to reasonably pay back, then it’s only a matter of time before you can seize their assets. In other words, you can get entire nations to enslave themselves through the enticements of borrowing from the future. This is precisely what is happening right now in Africa between China and many African nations. [ see debt-trap diplomacy ].
This was also the strategy employed by the Dutch when they were colonizing (1650 - 1800), and the United Kingdom when they were reigning (1800 - 1917) over the developed world.
I would argue, that this is also the strategy employed by banks and governments to keep global populations docile and complacent. Shut up, keep working, and don’t miss an interest payment. Or else.
Bitcoin; The Currency of Decolonization
So what does bitcoin have to do with all of this? Easy, it succeeds where all other currencies have failed. The Bison were able to be eradicated, completely collapsing the “currency” for the Comanche. Conversely, the manufacturing process of RAI stones was able to be exploited in order to hyperinflate the currency. Finally, through a variety of nefarious credit based practices linked to the money printer, countries and central banks are able to create and lend absorbent amounts of money to people and nations that will never be able to pay them back, placing them in monetary and economic chains.
Bitcoin is the tool of liberation here. It is built completely the opposite of modern fiat currencies. It cannot be created nor destroyed frivolously. It cannot be debased, or abused as a debt instrument. I imagine a world where entire groups of people unite under bitcoin and actively demonstrate its power to organize economic activity in the face of those who would rather not see that activity take place.
If the plan to colonize is to manipulate, seize, or destroy the local economy. Then the plan to decolonize has to be to adopt an unmanipulatable, unsiezeable, indestructible money.
nor destroyed frivolously.? Hmmm wouldn't a strategy to destroy or control the economics of Bitcoin be to acquire it and destroy it. Why couldn't a regulatory organization or nation use same strategy approach to Bitcoin as you present in other examples of Bison, or RAI stones?
Hi francis,
I`m always reading your publication i like them and help me to understand many things.
Actually,i`m preparing some project concerning crypto industry , so before speaking about project and if you are interested, can i get some info about you like where you live ?