In my second book, I described a story that begins with a group of blind people who feel an elephant approaching. Each one touches a different part of the elephant but all shout their discoveries: "it's a leg," "it's an ear", "it's a belly," and so on. Today, something similar is happening and I would like us to talk about that. Today, many blind people are gathered around the same elephant: inflation. It's not a characteristic creature of the economy, but when you encounter it, it's inevitable to be frightened.

I was reading Arthur Hayes' article and his sharp macroeconomic perspectives. I couldn't finish his article without getting scared, but at the same time, I also realized that the story is repeating itself in this way: We are the blind ones, all of us, including you who are reading this and encountering inflation. Each one touches a part of it:

"My money is losing value, I touch this and suddenly my bills are worth nothing," one shouts.

"What is this? I touch it and everything's prices rise. Everything is more expensive, yet it's the same as yesterday," another complains.

"I don't understand. It tells me I can't save anymore, that I should only invest," another is surprised.

"The Consumer Price Index¹ tells me that things are cheap according to the Central Bank, but everything is more expensive. I'm confused," the next one admits.

But blind people -we'll change the ending- now receive guidance from a one-eyed person who shouts at them not to worry, these are natural things in the economy, everything is fine, and a little inflation has never killed any financial strength, it just stimulates the wheel to keep moving. The blind people, even though they accept the advice from someone with better vision than theirs, are left with doubt.

End?

That's the point, we don't know. Or well, we have a fairly advanced perspective that we do know the likely futures, and that scares us, but we still want to trust. We have a glimmer of hope because we prefer to be sedated with the fentanyl of lies rather than walk through the fasting of truth. Our bodies need to believe that we're fine. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but we're not.

After nearly a month of silence, I've started writing again, but it's not because I took vacations or something similar, it's just that there wasn't much to say. During that period of not writing anything, I realized in my silence that there were many people filling communication spaces with junk information, consuming french fries abundant in fat that promised temporary pleasure rather than lasting happiness.

Many things worry me, but the one that scares me the most is this: they're laughing at the solution. I had previously written about how to feed your piggy bank, but I also dedicated many words to explaining why Bitcoin was chosen as the preferred currency. That choice is not accidental, but still, they distrust the option. They prefer the familiar evil over a promising future, like a smoker who slowly kills their lungs one by one instead of quitting and starting anew under the excuse that we'll all die someday.

I've written two books trying to summarize more knowledge, yet it's all insufficient. But the storm is looming, and everyone knows it, yet they prefer to ignore it. The government will regulate it, the perfect excuse. And I'm not against it, as it's already happening, but this is the result, what we're experiencing today. That's why you go shopping and the highest denomination bill is already insufficient. In previous years, with that same bill, you would have a feast for family and friends, a little left over for the week, and maybe you'd save a bit. Today, nothing.

Bitcoin doesn't solve cancer, poverty, or any economic problems. Let's understand that clearly, what does it solve? It's a solution to the Byzantine Generals' Problem, but to keep it short: trust. What Bitcoin easily solves is allowing value transfer without relying on a third party, whether that's John, Joe Smith Inc., Chase Bank, the Central Bank, or the Federal Reserve. With lines of code, Bitcoin makes all of them obsolete.

For over 800 years, these individuals and institutions² dominated economic and financial axes, controlling the greatest communication instrument created by humans to transmit value information: money. Satoshi Nakamoto demonstrated through code that these institutions can be dispensable. And there lies the problem: these institutions feel threatened, and when someone attacks you, you counterattack with the arsenal available to you: studies, paper reviews, academia, emeritus professors, scientists, data curated by the same institution, donations to NGOs and institutes to write what you want. I could continue citing, but it would be a waste of space, and I believe I've already conveyed the most important point of all: not relinquishing spaces. Especially not to an auditable, transparent, decentralized software, without leaders or leadership.

They aren't afraid, but they're seeking Gattopardian alternatives to keep everything the same: stablecoins were the first step. In fact, we all accept them; they're a very important instrument for countries where the monetary system is completely destroyed. But as they aren't controlled by the current powers, an alternative must be provided that they can use, something that citizens can use to feel they're riding the decentralization wave, yet controlled at the dictated pace: the birth of CBDCs, centralized currencies from central banks. I won't go into too much detail, but I'll quote something I wrote at some point when we touched on this topic here:

The goal here is to make you feel better. They'll give in a bit, that's clear: they'll have to be more transparent in their use, they'll be exposed to more auditability (nothing major, just more paperwork), but that will be the extent of it. They will always have control over money, over the nodes. I don't need to go far; in the past, we talked about the impact of PayPal, and in this place, we talked about how the company won't relinquish its rights over money. We called it The Clay Giant, and the conclusion was as follows:

It's worth clarifying that we aren't discovering gunpowder here; we're simply echoing something fundamental and something that's often forgotten: the ultimate, final, ultimate goal of cryptocurrency in its original conception, which we've already stated above, isn't even to have faster transactions or for the masses to adopt crypto or any of those tales. The ultimate goal is decentralization. And that seems to be forgotten³.

But at the end of the day, it doesn't worry me either. It's just a matter of time until they realize the inevitable: Bitcoin is for you, it won't go anywhere except on the path it was programmed for and as the protocol dictates. Let's not waste any more time on trivialities, don't waste time in crypto spaces whose only intention is to bleed your pockets for their yield farming, buying Bitcoin, withdrawing it, and continuing to do whatever works best for you. Bitcoin is for you, who don't have time to learn how to trade, invest, and all the financial intricacies that don't concern a person whose profession or calling has nothing to do with this. Take advantage of it. They say stack sats. Accumulate and be happy.