I meant to make this a regular FT article link post, since Martin Sandbu wrote "The battle for the global payments system is under way" today... without a mention of bitcoin. BUT because this revolutionary shitcoin disaster isn't playing ball this evening, let's entertain the possibility that we're wrong.
First, the article.
The fact is that the Eurozone is already shockingly dependent on American payment mechanisms. Some two-thirds of card payments in the Eurozone are processed by non-European card providers, says the ECB; 13 of the 20 countries using the euro do not have national card-payment systems."
- Europe doesn't control the payment rails over which most of its payments run: sanctions sidestep it/overrule it.
- Trump is deranged (uh-hum, #933308), and he's surrounded by stablecoin peeps — USD stablecoins.
- plus, for the hell of it I'll include the unstated savings destroyed/monetization shoved into unaffordable real estate across Museum Europe etc, etc.
Ideas include a currency and payments system run by and for Brics countries. Technologies such as stablecoins offer an instant, cheap and 24/7 alternative to the expensive, slow and cumbersome legacy of correspondent banking.
But mostly:
The weaponisation of the dollar-based financial system — note how the US has cut off access by adversaries to Swift messaging for bank transfers — has prompted quests for alternatives. Ideas include a currency and payments system run by and for Brics countries. Technologies such as stablecoins offer an instant, cheap and 24/7 alternative to the expensive, slow and cumbersome legacy of correspondent banking.
Monetary overloards and politrixians thinking out loud about a payment solution, and dependency on a single nation, and SWIFT sanctions measures (...which they have loved recently, but whatever). And instead of picking the most obvious fix for that — neutral, unstoppable, freedom money — you're trying to invent a central planning, government solution... with the ECB in charge?!
It's just so undeniably, unavoidable, staring-you-right-in-the-face obvious that bitcoin is the FIX for all of these problems you address...
...except, of course, that maybe it isn't so obvious. Maybe we were all just delusioned and shitface-wrong about this?
I guttorally hate these crap-ass price moves. And honey badger fucking should care ( (#764675).): it makes us poorer, our industry less relevant, our asset less capable of doing the revolutionary things we think it could do (#855317).
Against the backdrop of
- end of hegemonic power
- sanctions/avoidance, internationally
- sanctions/avoidance, retail/banks/Canadian truckers
- debanking
- inflation wrecking absolutely everyone
- recent history of vaccine passport for moving about/buying things
- noise about programmable CBDC
- never been easier to understand/learn about Bitcoin (podcasts, videos, services, products)
- ETFs
- Regulatory clarity, less hostile environment
- fucking wealth funds (both murmur in the U.S. and foreign ones buying)
- Metaplanet and Saylor and GME etc, etc, etc.
- hashrate ripping (and with price going down, hashprice collapsing...)
...all I can see when BTC/USD misbehaves like this (#908702) is Michael Burry in The Big Short: (2-min clip here, 4:29-6:45)
Michael Burry to Louis, the employee: "Can you come in early tomorrow? We need to unload the AIG and Countrywide positions to afford the premiums on [the rest of the mortgage short positions]." Louis: OK. Dr. Burry, if the investors withdraw what's gonna happen? Burry: "Honestly I don't know... The bonds aren't going down! They won't move! It's possible that we're in a completely fraudulent system!!" Louis: "...or you're... wrong." Burry: "sure, it's possible... I just don't know how. Burry: "I guess, when someone is wrong, they never know how."
I guess, when a community of young, disillusioned, mostly men are wrong; they never quite know how. They just wither away, their dreams and ideas buried with their premature deaths from overdoses and poverty.
This is not what a new, revolutionary money LOOKS LIKE
What @realBitcoinDog loves to tell me during moments like this is that my exposure is too high... damn right, it's too high... but what's a dog (or in my case, monkey!) to hold? There's no more fiat, and no more chairs, and no more future etc, etc. We speak in memes here:
Sure, it's possible [that I'm wrong about this]... I just don't know how
Relevant memes for the day, then:
Peace out, frens. Happy poverty Sunday.
non-paywalled: https://archive.md/aakZn