The deeper I reflect and think about things, the more I am convinced that the idea of "nation state adoption" of Bitcoin was a huge mistake. On paper it has its merits, but the biggest fallacy with it was that the state would voluntarily commit financial suicide by handing over control of the money printer to a decentralized network of anons. The state's only goal is the expansion of its power and thus how does adopting Bitcoin over the USD, sterling or Euro further that goal? It doesn't.

In a bid to believe in fairytales, this idea gained traction even more so following El Salvador's Bitcoin legal tender law. I was one of those that cheered for it, but looking back a few years later it does seem like the momentum has dampened a bit. Especially given how the IMF has defanged the whole arrangement and pre-emptively blocked the pathway for Argentina to follow in ES ' footsteps. That's not to say ES isn't better off with Bitcoin, but more of a recognition of the fact that if a country that has a pro Bitcoin gvt was pressured by the banksters through the IMF to compromise their Bitcoin adoption policy, how much more those gvts that are already Bitcoin hostile?

Furthermore, it's this same idea that invited the strategic Bitcoin reserve nonsense, where ignorant and economically illiterate politicos were even talking about "backing the dollar" with Bitcoin and paying off the national debt (which is always expanding by the second) via an SBR. LOL! 😂 None of these ideas are realistic but a lot of folks due to craving legitimacy from the same system they were meant to obsolete, applauded these statements.

Bitcoin became a political slogan, that would be mentioned during political fundraisers and thus was exploited by the marauding charlatans running for office looking to fill their coffers from the donations of gullible Bitcoiners who would become moonstruck whenever their favourite politico mentioned something good about Bitcoin and the ever elusive SBR. They had garnered experience over the years from killing grassroots populist movements like Occupy Wall Street, The Tea Party and Ron Paul 's campaign to name a few, and used it to lull some Bitcoiners into a deep slumber of inaction, while being hustled for political donations. Talk about bringing the fox into the hen house.

In fact, the state actually seized this moment of temporary hypnosis and started working on CBDCs, a far worse iteration of fiat money; while preaching the SBR doctrine. Through the lobbying efforts of BlackRock type firms, regulations were introduced that favoured and promoted stablecoins over Bitcoin. Furthermore, despite the lobbying efforts, the orange pilling of politicos, numerous SBR bills; there's still no meaningful nation state adoption anywhere outside of ES. What we do have are more CBDCs, Bitcoin ETFs, stablecoin proliferation, travel rule implementation, more KYC, more devs on trial or in prison, more restrictions on cryptocurrencies in general and zero financial privacy. This isn't to mock the efforts of those that are working hard to engage policymakers on these issues, it's just a reality check on the soundness of a particular strategy.

All in all, the focus should have been on grassroots adoption the whole time. Asking the powers that be to give up the money printer for the greater good was a fool's errand. Aside from the fact that they don't control the central banks, the power to conjure up money from thin air is too great a power to resist especially in a world where politicos like Pres Bukele are the exception not the rule.