Buying Bitcoin doesn't stop wars! 🚫💣
As we stand at the brink of another war, I see a lot of voices calling for buying more Bitcoin/crypto in order to prevent future wars.
This does nothing! 🙅♂️
Yes, I believe that decentralized tech, specifically around money, can end this helpless cycle of voting and then getting no real change.
But, we won't get there just by buying, and certainly not just Bitcoin. Here's why:
🪙They can keep inflating fiat anyway!
If you still use fiat to spend, it doesn't matter if you save in Bitcoin. You still need to sell for fiat in order to spend it, and that props up the value of fiat, which can still be inflated away.
Sure, the rich can have a tiny exposure to fiat, but the poor, who don't have savings, will bear an even larger part of the inflation theft. Wars still get funded.
🪙Paper Bitcoin
If people use custodial crypto of any kind, there's always a chance that the supply of paper crypto (how much is accounted for on centralized balance sheets) is more than the actual real supply.
This means that governments and institutions can still "print Bitcoin" even if the actual on-chain supply doesn't get inflated. Wars still get funded.
🪙Confiscation
And finally, if you don't hold and spend your crypto from self-custody, it's always available to be confiscated under whichever pretexts governments use.
It would be trivial to make up some criteria such as the wealthiest top 1% of crypto holders, those who haven't touched their funds in many months, civil asset forfeiture, etc., and take people's crypto to give to the government. Wars still get funded.
The real solution: USE CRYPTO AS MONEY ⚡️💵
The only way crypto fixes wars is if a critical mass of people use it as money, day-to-day, with full self-custody over their funds for savings and spending.
Here's what doing that will accomplish:
🪙Kill the value of what they inflate
There's only value in fiat because there's demand (enforced by law) to use it for goods and services. People needing fiat to pay for bills keep people dependent on it, and keep them putting value into it, which government then extracts.
Get value out of fiat, even (especially!) for spending, no more money for wars.
🪙Keep crypto actually scarce
By holding and using crypto in self-custody, there's no ability for central parties to inflate it by creating "paper Bitcoin" which exceeds the supply of actual Bitcoin. Kills the money printer.
No more money for wars.
🪙Keep the "nuclear option" of defunding government
Finally, with all people's money firmly outside of government and institutional control, if things get bad enough the people can just refuse to give them any more money. Of course this carries risk of prison and other punishment, but it's still possible to withhold funds until the wars stop.
No more money for wars.
Stop only stockpiling Bitcoin and pretending this will end the wars. It won't. You need to live on crypto in order to keep the war machine from moving forward.