Bitcoin’s Final Boss

14,074 reads

@ daniel-jeffries Daniel Jeffries I am an author, futurist, systems architect, public speaker and pro blogger.

“Bitcoin ought to be outlawed.”

reactions

Those were the ominous words of economist Joseph Stiglitz in an interview with Bloomberg last week.

reactions

He’s not the first to say it and he certainly won’t be the last.

reactions

Live interview with another old elite who hates Bitcoin, Joseph Stiglitz.

reactions

In its short lifetime Bitcoin managed to survive against all all odds. It kept grinding through the collapse of Mt Gox. It outlasted critics and doubters who declared it dead again and again and again. It outwitted an exchange and ICO ban from China. It hasn’t suffered a major security breach, even as it moves billions of dollars around the world in the blink of an eye, something almost no major company or government’s website can claim.

reactions

When you think about just how many major corporations suffered hacks, from Equifax to Sony to Apple to JP Morgan (who’s CEO laughably called Bitcoin a fraud when he can’t even protect his own systems), as well as supposedly secure government websites, from the NSA to the Department of Defense to the Army, Bitcoin’s incredible security is almost unbelievably mind-boggling.

reactions

But Bitcoin’s biggest battle is yet to come.

reactions

Governments and banks.

reactions

Master investor Naval Ravikant calls governments and the old world banking elite the “final boss.”

reactions

For a time, the powers that be only laughed at the little currency that could. But they aren’t laughing anymore. As Bitcoin surges higher and higher, the eye of Sauron turns.

reactions

Eye of Sauron in The Lord of the Rings.

reactions

And if you think central powers can’t do major damage to crypto, think again. They wield the ultimate power:

reactions

The violence hack.

reactions

That’s power to kill you or put you in jail.

reactions

Back in October 2017, former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernake said “eventually governments will take any action necessary to prevent Bitcoin.”

reactions

He wasn’t kidding. The only question is whether the distributed design of cryptos can survive the assaults to come? Only time will tell.

reactions

But the efforts to reign in the decentralized money engine have already started.

reactions

Classic cold war Russian propaganda.

reactions

Proof of Work mining is the biggest choke point of the Bitcoin system. It leads to heavy centralization with specialized chips. Miners process transactions around the world and mint new coins. While China has so far laid off on attacking mega-miners like Jihan Wu, Russia already set the stage for the assault: Registration.

reactions

By forcing miners to register they can keep track of them and tax them and if necessary seize their mines and take all the coins for themselves. In a time of war, that is exactly what they’ll do, take the mines by sending in men with guns. It’s hard to pick up a few thousand ant-miners and move them somewhere else. And because they pull so much electricity they’re easy to spot.

reactions

Alternative consensus protocols can stop this attack, like Proof of Stake. But more work is needed and Proof of Stake needs to prove itself with a major coin. Other consensus protocols will develop in the coming years, ones that don’t burn as much energy but still provide proof that a job was done in the correct way and nobody cheated.

reactions

But it’s now a race against time.

reactions

Congress is looking to expand its money laundering law to target crypto by making it a crime to hide any wallets or crypto you own with Senate Bill S.1241.

reactions

It makes it illegal to conceal a digital wallet and cryptocurrency for any reason and while crossing the border. So just declare it, right? You’re a good, law abiding citizen. You pay your taxes including your crypto taxes. You’ve got nothing to hide.

reactions

Except the border control folks have the right to steal it from you without just cause.

reactions

In other words, they can take the money just because they feel like it and they don’t even have to tell you why.

reactions

If that sounds like legalized robbery, it’s because that’s exactly what it is.

reactions

The ACLU documents thousands of cases of everyday citizens robbed of their life savings. It’s called Civil Asset Forfeiture. And lest you think only liberal leaning organizations see it as a problem, think again. The arch-conservative Heritage Foundation has a page dedicated to the ever growing problems with the practice.

reactions

It’s one of those rare issues where both the left and right agree. When Attorney General Jeff Sessions looked to roll back Obama era restrictions on asset forfeiture he faced an immediate backlash from both sides of the aisle.

reactions

So why do we still have state sponsored theft?

reactions

Greed.

reactions

Mostly the money is used to pad law enforcement pockets in a time when budgets are falling. According to the Washington Post the people who are supposed to protect us stole more money from Americans in 2014, over $5 billion dollars, than all the burglars in the US combined, who only managed to nab a measly $3.5 billion.

reactions

The new Senate law creates a nasty dilemma that runs head first into the wall of civil asset forfeiture. If you fail to tell border agents you’re carrying $10,000 or more in crypto you could spend 10 years in jail. If you do tell them, they can take it from you, by holding you indefinitely and demanding your password, even without charging you with a crime.

reactions

It’s a living, breathing Catch-22.

reactions

These are the kind of things the healthy democracies don’t do but that failing, flawed democracies with crumbling infrastructure and institutions do with impunity. That’s why the United States crashed out of the top of the Democracy Index that lists full and thriving democracies and smashed down into the “flawed democracies” range.

reactions

The Founding Fathers are rolling in their graves.

reactions

Not for a second would they have allowed a law like that to pass unchecked. They would have tossed it in with the Intolerable Acts that lead to war with England. The Founding Fathers wanted to protect your private property at all costs. To them property was sacred. The government couldn’t take it without a damn good reason. That’s what the 4th amendment was all about and why they created it.

reactions

“ The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Don’t get me wrong. The Founding Fathers didn’t want criminals and terrorists keeping their profits and I sure as hell don’t either. But they wanted due process, rule of law, proof and convictions. They didn’t want us turning into some banana republic, with arbitrary search and seizure and crooked cops ripping people off like they’re Mexican cops rolling tourists for cash at a traffic stop.

reactions

They did this because they lived in an authoritarian state. They knew exactly what it meant. The English government could force you to put a soldier up in your house and foot the bill. They sometimes charged people in secret courts, called Star Chambers with no possibility of appeal. The Constitution was specifically designed to halt these abuses but today they’re running rampant because the people alive now have never lived in anything but a free society and don’t know what it means to not live in one.

reactions

They might want to study the history of the countries at the bottom of the Democracy Index because bad laws are a slippery slope that can slide a country right to the bottom of the list almost overnight.

reactions

Check out Venezuela where they went from thriving democracy to utter collapse. Take a look at Zimbabwe, which suffered insane levels of hyperinflation, or any of the cutthroat political regimes of central Africa like Rwanda. Rwanda didn’t just suffer a genocide in 1994, they’ve been suffering them for a hundred years as one ousted group regains power and takes revenge on the other side yet again.

reactions

These laws are only the beginning. More will follow.

reactions

Yet all hope is not lost.

reactions

Some countries, like Japan and Switzerland, have already taken an enlightened approach to crypto.

reactions

The enlightened approach.

reactions

They see cryptos as a game changing technology that will help create more wealth and prosperity than any other technology in the history of the world. Smart countries are embracing it with open arms.

reactions

Other countries should learn from these smart countries.

reactions

But less enlightened regimes are taking a dark view of cryptos, particularly the ones that worship power and control at all costs. Vietnam has already banned crypto. Indonesia did the same, despite the fact that their money is essentially worthless and most of their population is completely unbanked.

reactions

None of these efforts will work in the long run.

reactions

The decentralized nature of cryptos make them hard to completely stamp out but central powers can do serious damage to them in the short run and create a lot of pain and suffering for regular people, while utterly failing to stop the bad guys.

reactions

Cryptos are not going away. Every day more and more traditional powers join the crypto party. The CME Group starts trading Bitcoin futures in a few weeks. The CBOE beat them to it and starts trading on the 10th. The more money that floods into them, the more incentive they have to protect them.

reactions

And a world wide ban is never happening. In today’s fractured society, there’s almost zero chance that all the countries in the world will agree on anything. Some countries will oppose a ban just to spite their rivals or because they see it as a way to get around global sanctions. That means there will always be nodes running somewhere in the world to process transactions.

reactions

Crypto is changing with the new threats, morphing and shifting. Anonymity technology is surging in popularity with privacy focused coins like Zcash and Monero leading the charge. If governments push too hard, they’ll only make it harder and harder to get a better handle on their uses for illicit purposes.

reactions

Better to embrace them openly and bring them into the light. Make them mainstream. Let people buy kittens and Snickers and books on Amazon!

reactions

Crypto Kitties!

reactions

Cryptocurrencies are incredibly resilient, world changing technologies. They’re unlike any other asset class that has ever existed. For all the doubters who try to pigeonhole them as digital gold they’re really missing the boat.

reactions

They’re programmable money.

reactions

You can’t program a dollar to self-escrow in a smart contract that pays out every month. But you can do that with Ethereum.

reactions

Too often it’s been psychopaths who’ve run the world.

reactions

They’re also a path to self-sovereignty and control of the money you earned. A refugee fleeing a war torn country can simply delete their wallet, memorize its special phrase and recreate it once they get to a safe haven. No more will ruthless regimes rob the poorest people of everything they have as they’re fleeing the battles of psychopathic monsters.

reactions

Cryptos can and will change the world for the better.

reactions

But to get there they’ll have to face the final boss, a relentless one that will do anything to keep control of the money supply. Never forget that money is power. And nobody gives up power without a fight.

reactions

Bowser, the final boss in Super Mario Brothers.

reactions

The war on crypto is coming like a dark storm.

reactions

Governments will sell it with the same tired old song, as a way to stop criminals and terrorists.

reactions

But it’s never really about that.

reactions

It’s about control.

reactions

It’s about whether they can take your money just because they feel like it.

reactions

The people who cheated the system thrived.

reactions

Cryptos have central powers scared. All the people who benefited from the collateralize debt obligations while you lost your house got away with their crimes. They didn’t just get away with it, you helped bail them out. You gave retirement packages to the biggest perpetrators who are now living in even bigger mansions and laughing.

reactions

Of course, it’s always the short sighted and the wicked who try to stop new technology to make sure they maintain their own position at all costs.

reactions

It’s just that this time it won’t work.

reactions

Countries that stand against the blockchain will find that it blows back on them and punishes them severely, while the rest of the world roars past. They won’t get to play in the new sandbox. They’ll watch as other economies leave them in the dust, armed with brand new financial technology that makes the snail speed of current fintech worthless.

reactions

And the people who robbed the world of its wealth and the dictators who crashed their economies and lived in palaces while their people starved will pay a terrible price.

reactions

The world won’t miss any of them.

reactions

###########################################

reactions

Get your Money Badger shirt right here for a limited time. Nothing can stop the Money Badger as he takes over the world (not even the big bankers)!

reactions

The ultimate Bitcoin t-shirt! Grab one for your crypto loving friends for Christmas.

reactions

###########################################

reactions

If you love my work you might consider visiting my Patreon page because I’m trying to save the world and I can’t do it alone.

reactions

############################################

reactions

A bit about me: I’m an author, engineer and serial entrepreneur. During the last two decades, I’ve covered a broad range of tech from Linux to virtualization and containers.

reactions

Check out my first novel, The Scorpion Game, a mind bending far future noir, that readers call “the first serious competition to Neuromancer” and “Detective noir meets Johnny Mnemonic.”

reactions

Feel free to join my Readers Group if you want to stay up to date with the latest and greatest I have to offer.

reactions

############################################

reactions

You can also join my private Facebook group, the Nanopunk Posthuman Assassins, where we discuss all things tech, sci-fi, fantasy and more.

reactions

############################################

reactions

For some of my most exclusive stories and the best utility coin research on the planet, check out Strategic Coin!

reactions

############################################

reactions

Lastly, if you love the crypto space as much as I do, come on over and join DecStack, the Virtual Co-Working Spot for CryptoCurrency and Decentralized App Projects, where you can rub elbows with luminaries from multiple projects. It’s totally free forever. Just come on in and socialize, work together, share code and ideas. Make your ideas better through feedback. Find new friends. Meet your new family.

reactions

############################################

reactions

As always, thanks for reading.

reactions

Tags