Good Morning Everyone,
As financial sanctions, bans and the freezing and confiscation of assets become all the rage amongst politicians and legacy media the world over in response to the Russian conflict, and in an attempt to condemn the actions of Vladimir Putin, it’s hard to cite a more significant series of events to demonstrate how Bitcoin truly fixes this.
I really am amazed and completely bamboozled quite frankly, by the fact that so much of the world still fails to recognise the level of risk to which they’re actually exposed and specifically to the counter-party risk which is so multifaceted its scary.
The legacy system is a system of trust that is not backed by anything, and there is an endless number of examples as to why you would be a fool to trust it. A system that strips you of your rights and ability to custody your own assets. A system that disincentives you from holding bearer assets and is based on taking from the future (debt). A system were the rules can be modified and weaponised against you and enable a 3rd party to censor your access.
There is clearly such a giant knowledge gap on the part of bitcoin detractors preventing them from grasping this. It seems at this point that the only thing that is going to help them get the message unfortunately is pain.
As Lyle Pratt said below:
Naturally every central bank has no choice but to be seeking alternatives right now. Trust is fundamentally asymmetric. It takes a long time to build, but can vanish in a split second. Just like in 2008 when the US demonstrated that they would devalue the currency in a historic way at the expense of all those that were forced to hold massive amounts of USD in FOREX reserves due to being trapped by the petrodollar system, it becomes simply impossible for any node in the legacy system to trust that sanctions and financial attack would not one day come for them.
Nic Carter said it perfectly:
I cannot imagine still trusting banks or any financial intermediaries for that matter. Certainly not with any significant level of capital. The notion of that is simply insane as far as i’m concerned.
If that is how i feel, i can only imagine what Putin would be thinking. What would every central bank be thinking? What would the super wealthy all around the world be thinking? Would they be ok with the level of counter-party risk they’re exposed to?
With pressure on all intermediaries including centralized crypto exchanges to censor any Russian accounts Kraken CEO Jesse Powell has been vocal on the critical nature of properly securing your bitcoin keys and taking custody of your wealth which is powerful and demonstrates his principles given the incentives that exist.
In a tongue-in-cheek response to the Canadian government condemning he and others from recommending people custody their assets, Jesse said:
He also discussed recent calls for more censorship, specifically of Russian accounts, in an excellent thread included below - i urge you to have a read.
This is akin to the CEO of a major bank saying “get your money out, it’s not safe!”
Pretty incredible.
To consciously elect to remain in a system that can literally flick a switch and erase any existence of your wealth is absolute madness. A system that will not allow you to custody your own assets and that enables the freezing and/or seizure of those assets is madness.
There really is only one alternative. The greatest risk right now is not bitcoins volatility. It’s storing your wealth in the legacy system where it could vanish over night if your government decided to engage in some kind of war, and steal your money from you to pay for it. This is no longer a fringe idea. Leaders the world over have no choice but to seek alternatives.
Do not wait for pain to educate you. Do the work now if you have not already to insulate yourself from counter-party risk and opt-in to the most sophisticated monetary network in human history. There has never been a better mechanism to transport value across time and space, and that enables you to take the power and responsibility to custody it yourself. Grab that opportunity with both hands and opt-in to the peaceful protest that is bitcoin.
Ever grateful to the genius of Satoshi in moments like these.
Hope you have a great day. I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow.
AK
