Image by Satheesh Sankaran, licensed under Creative Commons Sharealike 2.0
What would you do with your life if you had all the freedom and money in the world?
Feed starving children? Launch a new political movement? Band together to save your favourite local woodland? Clean up the coastline? Deliver shelter to the homeless?
As I write this article, I have the story of Live Aid on in the background. It’s a reminder that empathy and willpower can be unstoppable. But education, timing and logistics are just as important.
What if I were to tell you that a window of opportunity has opened that will enable you and those who share your ideals to make a real difference in the world?
That the stranglehold that corporations and governments had over money and governance has already loosened and that a smart collective move now could ensure they never assume complete control ever again.
Yes, it’s a stretch, I admit. But the more I learn about cryptocurrencies and the blockchain ‘rails’ they run on, the more excited I get. AI may be the focus of all the tech news at the moment, but what is happening with our financial system is just as revolutionary. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the fiat money system is experiencing its death throes. And cryptocurrencies are just the tip of the iceberg that its ship will be wrecked on.
I strongly suggest that you spend as much time as you can educating yourself about the potential of blockchain technology to fundamentally change our world. I certainly have been. And then decide whether you, like me, want to get on that wave. Because once it’s washed past, the time to act could be gone for good.
How the end of money quietly began
Around ten years ago, I read a fascinating book on cryptocurrencies. Like many people, I was intrigued by the fact that some person (or team of people) somehow made up a new type of money which made them rich. It got me really questioning everything I knew about money, value and currency.
The book focused on just two of the many cryptocurrencies that were in existence at the time: Bitcoin and Ether. It explained – pretty well – how the underlying ‘blockchain’ technology enabled Bitcoin to function as a store of value. Crucially, it also introduced me to the programmable aspect of the blockchain – smart contracts – and the ethos of decentralisation which, together turn the blockchain into one of the most disruptive online technologies that has ever been created (on par with AI).
After reading the book, I realised, with a mixture of excitement and horror, that blockchain technology would change the world, and that Bitcoin was just its herald. I decided to invest a small amount of my savings into Bitcoin and Ether and follow the most common strategy recommended by those early stage crypto adopters – HODL (hold on for dear life).
What followed was a series of events that had those who equated Bitcoin with tulips and dotcom bubbles nodding superciliously. Basically, whatever could go wrong in the crypto space did go wrong. And those who weren’t HODLing soon cashed in their crypto for fiat dollars, pounds and euros and cursed their naivete. Pah – digital money: how could we have been so stupid.
We had crypto exchanges being hacked or their owners simply doing a runner with people’s investments. We had ponzi-style crypto investment schemes. We had the boom and bust of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). We had the FBI infitrating the dark web and crowbarring a link between dodgy marketplaces like Silk Road and the cryptocurrencies spent there.
Oh yes, and to cap it all we had COVID which caused a global financial crisis for everybody, including the crypto community.
The economy is changing…most people haven’t noticed
As Americans went to the polls to choose between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, the crypto community watched with bated breath. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) under Jo Biden had been chaired by the fiercely crypto-skeptic Gary Gensler. His remit seemed clear: treat all crypto dealing as suspect and ruthlessly enforce any transgressions you come across. With the EU predictably being cautious over crypto, a Democrat victory would hardly inspire bullish momentum in Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.
But Gensler and his SEC terriors were swept away on the MAGA wave and crypto advocates – many whose views would have been to the left of left wing – could hardly have dared to believe what would come next. He may not have uttered the words, but Trump 2.0’s message was clear: his administration was going to ‘make crypto great again!’
While a pro-crypto administration gave Bitcoin the boost investors sorely needed, there were still plenty of question marks over the original cryptocoin’s future. Sure, it had weathered several economic shocks without dying, and some household name financial institutions, like J.P. Morgan and BlackRock, were starting to show a serious interest in offering customers exposure to it, but there was still no evidence that Bitcoin would fulfil those early dreams of becoming a safe haven asset – a digital version of gold.
For many, Bitcoin was an untested ‘risk-on’ asset with its trajectory seen as largely coupled to tech stocks such as Apple, NVIDIA, Amazon and Tesla. If the Nasdaq were to fall, Bitcoin would follow, it was assumed.
This assumption was soon to be tested when Trump shocked the markets with his so-called ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs. Predictably, the big bellwethers of the stock market rang out their warnings: the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Dow Jones fell, treasury bond yields rose, gold soared. But what of Bitcoin? While it did experience a dip, it was nowhere near as deep as the equities it was expected to track. This evidence of decoupling is just what crypto enthusiasts had been waiting for. As global markets panicked amidst Trump’s erratic stance, many investors were clearly choosing to place their trust in Bitcoin. After all, Bitcoin, unlike dollars, euros, pounds and other fiat currencies, would be immune from the chaos of tariffs.
All of a sudden, it was as if the floodgates had opened. Huge volumes of Bitcoin began to flow into corporate treasuries around the world. Traditional institutions and disruptors alike were getting involved as Bitcoin edged back up towards its all-time record price. Over 90 percent of people holding Bitcoin were in profit.
I could mention other bullish signs for Bitcoin: an increase in eco-friendly mining, the rolling out of Bitcoin-related exchange traded funds (ETFs), the launch of stablecoins, the Genius bill… but let’s look beyond crypto’s flagship asset to the technology that makes it all work: the blockchain.
An on-chain future is almost inevitable
From a technological point of view, we are already well on the way to a future where everything from entertainment to insurance to supply chain management to real estate to banking will be processed online via ‘smart contracts’, algorithms that move data around the internet quickly and with minimal cost.
If you haven’t heard about this yet, it’s no surprise. The mainstream media isn’t exactly shining a spotlight on it. The technical language around it is also pretty dense. But scratch beneath the surface and you will find a thriving ecosystem like a hidden ant colony. One example should suffice: a couple of months ago, the United Arab Emirates, which has its own decentralised crypto exchange, found that the blockchain gas fees charged to move real estate tokens through Ripple’s blockchain cost them 50% less than the usual transaction fees paid to third parties. Now, you don’t have to be a crypto expert to know that real estate is big business in Dubai and that 50% is quite a discount.
Real estate is just one type of ‘real world asset’ (RWA) that can be tokenised. NFTs are another as are treasury bonds, milk from dairy farms and renewable batteries. Once represented by tokens, RWAs can hold data and be sent across the internet for investment or ownership transfer purposes, interacting with smart contracts that can be customised for various use cases. Once set up, the system is ‘permissionless’ (i.e., no single person can control how the code executes). Who programs these contracts in the first place? While there is no reason why a blockchain-running organisation can’t be centralised like any other tech company, the ethos behind blockchains call for another type of structure, and that’s where decentralised autonomic organisations (DAOs) come in. Think of it like a worker’s co-operative where everyone has a vote and steers the ship (or programs the contract) by consensus – and with no need to rely on trust.
This needs some explaining. Two of the reasons why blockchains are described as ‘trustless’ is their transparency (any transaction ever made can be viewed by anyone on a computer) and their ‘immutability’. Without going into technical detail (a lot of which is above my head anyway), it is almost impossible to change data on a block once it has been processed. ‘Almost’ makes it sound riskier than it is. While it is theoretically possible for a bad actor or group to seize control of a small blockchain, there is no way anyone could amass enough computing power to wrest control of the massive Bitcoin or Ethereum blockchains from the community as a whole.
From a practical point of view, even without mainstream adoption there are plenty of opportunities for people to get involved with blockchain-related projects (look out for terms such as dApps, DeFi and DAOs). These range from ‘staking’ your cryptocurrencies for project teams to use (like earning interest on your savings account) to actively validating blockchain transactions (known as mining).
I strongly recommend you start educating yourself about blockchains because as soon as crypto sheds its ‘dirty money’ image through – I don’t know – the passing of crypto-friendly bills in influential countries – you are going to start hearing about some of the massive projects that are already underway beneath the mainstream media radar.
The final section of this blog post, which is already much longer than I had originally planned, is about why I think this all matters.
Utopia is still possible – but only if we act soon
You know that scene when Indiana Jones is racing down a tunnel, pursued by a boulder, while a door slowly descends ahead of him?
I feel that this is where we are right now. Except we’re not running with anywhere near enough urgency, and we’re too busy fighting one another to even notice that the door’s closing. That boulder has a name: global centralisation. And whether it’s through design or accident (probably a mix of both), the worst case scenario is that the people and groups with the most wealth and resources will use them to control the rest of the population. Why? Because they don’t trust us to solve the world’s many problems through the exercising of our own freedoms.
Their fears may be well-founded, but that doesn’t give them the right to govern by force. To make decisions without consensus. To recreate the world in their image because they have no conception that anything outside of their own experience – dominated by extreme wealth, possessions and power – can be worth more.
But life, love and nature are worth more – much more! And now, just when the game seemed almost up, we have been handed a lifeline. Cryptocurrencies and blockchains are just tools, but the real gift they offer is ‘decentralisation’. To me, this is the most precious word in the world right now because while devolving power to millions of individuals and organisations may not bring us utopia, I am convinced that centralising all that power into a small handful of global titans will lead to dystopia. The boulder will crush us.
By holding decentralisation as our touchstone, we can gather the tools of liberation (dApps, DAOs, stablecoins) while avoiding the trap of technologies that may seem harmless on the outside but carry that scent of totalitarianism: global surveillance systems, centralised AI, CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies).
As with everything complicated (global warming, politics, economics), education is the first step towards mastery. I hope I’ve inspired you to take crypto seriously this year. If you still need persuading, maybe this episode of Greenpill will help. It nicely balances optimism with the sense of urgency that reminds us that we only have limited time to roll under that heavy door – and reclaim our freedom.