K.Rogoff writes in 'Our Dollar Your Problem' that US dollar hegemony has been in decline since about 2015.
He accepts that Bitcoin competes with the dollar, at least for use in illicit/grey markets but sees the primary challenge to USD hegemony being China and its already operational trade payments alternatives to the USD SWIFT hegemony.
Bitcoin has been severely obstructed in terms of use as a MoE, even as it has been allowed as a speculative commodity increasingly custodied by US institutions and KYCed and taxed.
In more autocratic nations Bitcoin is generally outlawed from use as a Moe quite explicitly while in the 'liberal' west it is simply impractical as a legal everyday MoE as the tax compliance and payment obligations make such use impracticable.
Will Bitcoiners be happy to see the USD decline and Chinas CBDC based mBridge trade payments protocol alternative to the USD/SWIFT protocol rise?
It seems to there is a degree of denial of reality in what is happening in terms of global monetary power and hegemony in the Bitcoin community so can we get more dialogue about what is happening as Chinas strategy to challenge the USD via alternative trade payments mechanisms including mBridge seems to be largely ignored as it is inconvenient to the NGU Bitcoin narrative and to the Libertarian belief system that cannot understand how China has won the trade war and thus logically seeks monetary system change to protect and preserve its increasingly powerful mercantile advantage.
Most Bitcoiners do not seem to even know what mBridge is- yet it is perhaps the most likely successor to the USD.
ref- https://www.ft.com/content/bfafb8f7-bd1c-48bb-85f4-8ba25475c0a3
How Washington plans to defend the dollar
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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @anon 18 May
Nobody cares about mbridge.
Come and take it
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi OP 18 May
You can ignore the reality that is described quite clearly in the linked article...but you cannot credibly refute it -
That may be why you are so desperate to dismiss it...
I quote-
'Four years ago, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS),
the central bankers’ central bank, unveiled an innovation
project that carried the ugly moniker “mBridge”.
This aimed to create a cross-border central bank digital currency linking the central banks of China, Hong Kong, Thailand, UAE and (latterly) Saudi Arabia.
You might think this is arcane. If so, think again: the geeky project symbolises a bigger battle that could matter deeply under US President Donald Trump.
More specifically, last autumn, just before the US election, the BIS unexpectedly pulled out of mBridge, in effect ceding control to China and the rest. BIS claimed this was just because it had reached “minimal viable product” stage. But few believe this. “The Americans demanded [the BIS] stop because it’s a threat,” one participant tells me, explaining that Washington worried that “it might be used to evade [dollar] sanctions”.
And while Agustín Carstens, BIS head, publicly denied that, speculation bubbles on — not least because Trump is undeniably on the monetary warpath: on Truth Social last month he repeated threats to impose “100% Tariffs” on countries trying to “replace the mighty U.S. Dollar” with new currencies or payments systems.
So investors should watch what happens next. For while it is Trump’s threats around trade tariffs that have been grabbing headlines recently, this less-visible fight around money matters deeply. After all (as I have noted before), it is the dollar-based global financial system that is the real source of America’s hegemonic power today, and which Washington wants to defend.
More striking, Swift data suggests that 49.1 per cent of all payments were in dollars last year, a 12-year high.
But there are three crucial caveats. First, central banks are hoovering up gold “at an eye-watering pace”, as the World Gold Council recently noted. That suggests a desire to hedge their fiat dollar exposure.
Second, the Swift data may be a little misleading since activity is swelling outside western platforms. China is building its own Cross-Border Interbank Payment System. This is small and rudimentary, but it has 160 members and transaction volume has jumped 80 per cent since 2022.
Third, Washington’s financial weaponisation seems to be fuelling — not halting — efforts by others to imagine alternatives. Hence why mBridge matters: if those digital pipes ever work at speed and scale (a big “if”), this would challenge the “hub and spoke” system centred on the US Federal Reserve.'
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @anon 18 May
Nobody cares about mbdrige and I stand by that.
We’re not all going to start using the yuan… at least not for a very very long time.
And as far as the dollar everyone knows it’s been dying since 2009. Nobody cares. All the ‘smart money’ is selling their dollars and moving to bitcoin/alternative assets as fast as the technology will allow.
Only the Americans are in denial.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi OP 19 May
You fail to address let alone credibly refute any of the facts and issues raised.
Your position is one blatantly and purely from a point of view of faith in Bitcoin when the reality is that Bitcoin is not allowed as a practical MoE in the vast majority of jurisdictions and outright banned in many.
You can hold a viewpoint based on blind faith but it is not convincing in a contest of ideas as it is not backed by sound, fact based reasoning and arguments- it is just vacuous self serving hopium.
There is no nation on earth that can afford to not trade with China without suffering significant economic disadavantage- certainly not the 'mighty' USA.
Trade dominance has always resulted in monetary dominance and with the almost universal lack of jurisdictions where sats can be used with ease and convenience it is highly improbable that Bitcoin will serve any major role in trade payments. Hoping it will does not result in it happening.
The scale of Bitcoin MoE use is absolutely minute and mostly illegal and or non-compliant with relevant laws.
Businesses are not going to adopt on scale where those payments are not lawful in almost all jurisdictions.
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