[brentis]

I’ve followed and been behind crypto for sometime. Over 11 years actually. My first exposure was when I downloaded the mining code in middle of 2011 when the price per coin was around $6. Despite personal missteps to fully capitalize on the opportunity, the notion was something which I stood behind as a way to have a degree of monetary sovereignty free from 3rd party banks participation. As many, I dove into the works and writings of Satoshi to understand who he was as it would have been disingenuous if it was actually built by any individual state. I did have suspicions that one of the NSA authors of How to Make a Mint: The Cryptography of Anonymous Electronic Cash was potentially related as he became completely silent about Bitcoin and to date never spoke about despite it being near and dear to his core research. Regardless, the crypto space evolved and devolved and the government, as always, has used dissent to soften and misalign the uninformed which is very kin to the wholesale “all drugs are bad” narrative. And while I’m sure anyone would find the efficiencies of crypto useful for business, it's always the bad that are highlighted and sensationalized. Ukraine gets nearly $100 million in crypto donations, but the risk that Russia may use to “bypass” sanctions that warrants swift movement of the cryptocurrency bill. Doesn’t it seem the timing of the record inflation due to trillions of dollars injected into the economy seems too coincidental to ignore?

This bill will grease the skids for a US crypto, similar to what China has already in service. People who quickly believe everything they hear will get excited, perhaps it is the $10 of “free” US crypto that is offered that helps adoption or the Venmo-like ease it is to send money to/fro. However, its very important to know - your money is will no longer act like it has in the past. It will now be more like “credits” which dynamically increase or decrease in value based on government whims. If the government wants to provide funding to stimulate the economy - magically trillions are distributed to everyone. Even more, they can make those funds disappear or expire if not used in a certain time. What’s worse, is that the notion of negative interest rates could be enacted to where your million dollar nest egg decays over time.

The gross inefficiencies of government coupled with their ability to wash away any misstep with trillions of dollars which we are paying for as a hidden tax via devaluation is what at issue and don’t see it going away soon. As I imagine the narrative will move to the USA crypto is the trusted and valid option and others are not secure, valid or even legal; I don’t think cryptos have much runway. The incentive for the US to control the money supply is too great. And if the US is one of the only two governments to warrant taxation of US citizens living abroad then you can be 100% certain they want to cover all their revenue leakage.

Until the US Government says to the contrary, Bitcoin and 100’s of other cryptocurrencies future are at risk. And if asking, is there any way to hedge against inflation? I think, metals are probably the answer. Gold, Copper, and even Uranium are all finite resources which similar to notion of BTC require “work” to mine and are done so on a global scale.