War famine or A Bitcoin Revolution

War famine or A Bitcoin Revolution

Scott Galloway recently pointed out that we are increasingly becoming controlled not by a flawed monetary system and a weak and corrupt government but by a class of billionaires who probably do not have our best interests at heart. “The good news is it self-correcting this level of income inequality is usually self-correcting. The bad news is that the means of self-correction are typically war, famine, or revolution.”

He misses that Bitcoin is a revolution; it’s slow, not noisy (no bombs), and gradual and then sudden. But a revolution that most in traditional Wall Street business miss.

Multi-Millionaire Warns “We Risk Revolution” As Americans Grow Increasingly Desperate

I love how Scott can bring a human perspective to his analysis of just about everything that comes into his focus. It surprised me that someone with such strong analytical skills could have missed the significance of Bitcoin as a factor in the changes he pointed out.

When money itself becomes neutral and resistant to political manipulation, economic relationships could shift from being tools of control to genuine vehicles for mutual benefit and cooperation. This is one of Bitcoin’s “Value Propositions.”

We cannot blame Scott for his misunderstanding. After all, he claims to have missed the technical foundations of Bitcoin and, therefore, cannot have the same conviction that Michael Saylor (an MIT Engineer) would have. Scott is a master of understanding human behavior and markets, so why can a smart guy like this say something as dumb as, “I think that it is an empty vessel with no underlying fundamentals, so it can triple and everyone will be able to say ‘look it’s tripled.’

For all his financial blindness, he more than makes up for it with his unfettered humanity. Calling it like it is, not afraid to express gratitude for his place in the world. Like me, his bull shit tolerance has waned.

This is relatively common for those whose context and perspective on life is traditional Wall Street. They miss the implications that come from a proper understanding of Bitcoin’s technical foundation.

In Mesopotamia, they made clay tablets that were used to keep track of debt, a ledger. In 2019, they made a digital version of a ledger with 99.98% reliability with no possibility of compromise by any third party. “They” the people wanting to cooperate in commerce, have removed friction from commerce, combining transaction and settlement in the same network on a nearly immediate basis, eliminating the need for a third party and removing any adverse influence into the transaction. This is precisely what Scott talked about when he said. “

“The good news is it self-correcting this level of income inequality is usually self-correcting. The bad news is that the means of self-correction are typically war, famine, or revolution.”

Somebody who has gotten it is Luke Gorman; like many other Hard Money, Gold people who understand the technology and realize the implications of “Hard Money” and the inevitability of Bitcoin. Check out some of Luke’s interviews on YouTube; they are thoughtful, honest, and spot-on.

But let’s continue with what I feel is one of the most revealing insights about what is wrong with our country. Scott goes on to say that “ The greatest trade of 2024 it wasn’t Bitcoin, it wasn’t Nvidia, it was Elon Musk investing a quarter of a billion dollars directly in the Trump campaign and then when Trump won since the election Elon Musk’s worth has gone up $140 billion so that’s effectively I believe about a 56,000 per return on investment so we’ve gone full kleptocracy.”

Let me break it down for the financially blind: Currency = Control (you know, central planning like Russia and China) Bitcoin (AKA money) = Freedom from Control. While Bitcoin’s percentage of increase in 2024 was 121%, Scott’s is 110% correct.

These are the same guys who Failed to see the internet’s full impact, Underestimated the mobile revolution, Missed social media’s transformation, and are now potentially missing Bitcoin’s implications. Competition drives innovation, but cooperation is what takes that new idea and transforms it into something that makes the world a better place.

Capitalism (AKA commerce under fiat controls) and commerce under Bitcoin is not the same animal. Open minds realize this. Whether it will be better or worse is still unanswered, but we know our system is broken and strangeling us. As Scott points out, an exploiting tax code that is biased toward 1% and drains the middle class, so it’s probably time to let go of what does not work and embrace the change.

To his credit, Scott has had Lyn Alden on his prof G Markets podcast numerous times. Lyn wrote the book “Broken Money — Why Our Financial System is Failing Us and How We Can Make it Better” I am going to assume that Scott sees some validity in Lyn’s reasoning. Besides being an excellent financial analyst, Lyn has more than a passing familiarity with engineering. It’s not the sort of BS that resulted in Credit-default-swaps and the 2008 mess. Rather engineering that sees the entire picture instead of a narrow view.

This perspective is one that does not apply old metrics to new paradigms, questions trusted established institutions, seeks unfamiliar patterns, and embraces change as part of the world we live in. Michael Saylor is another MIT engineer who has made some impressive waves in the financial sector with Bitcoin and Microstrategies. For more information on that take a look at the following YouTube video.

Why MicroStrategy Bought $40 Billion Worth of Bitcoin — ft. Michael Saylor | Prof G Markets

One of the key points in Lyn’s book is the role of third parties in the transactions and settlements of transactions due to the introduction of technology, in particular the telegraph.

I have to take issue with Scott’s statement, “The greatest trade of 2024 wasn’t Bitcoin…” Scott is probably correct if we consider a trade a financial transaction. Still, if we look deeper and consider all those Bitcoin users who are trading traditional finance for a better alternative, he is missing the part where the “revolution” is and has been rolling for some time now.

The system is self-correcting and proceeding at a blistering pace. As technology changes go Bitcoin is on schedule, but as changes in money go Bitcoin is proceeding at light speed. Goldsmiths’ receipts became transferable and accepted as money. Fractional reserve banking developed gradually, central banking emerged over long periods, and fiat currency adoption happened over generations. But Bitcoin cemented itself in a few short years: 15 years.

Protocols enabled clear long-distance telephone calls, and protocols enabled the global internet. Bitcoin is another revolutionary protocol that, like tcpip, slipped into our lives when MASH and Starwars were wrapping up their stories, Michael Jackson was moonwalking, and cabbage patch kids became a retail obsession. Bitcoin might enable a form of commerce that is more aligned with natural human cooperation rather than artificially imposed constraints. Instead of competing for control of the monetary system itself, participants would compete through actual value creation and collaboration.

The Bitcoin protocol could help unleash the natural efficiency of markets by removing artificial financial friction points. When money stops being a tool of control and becomes a pure medium of exchange, it could allow commercial relationships to develop based purely on mutual benefit and real economic value.

Some call it the evolution of money, a new technology of money, whatever you call it; there is no denying it ain’t tulips. When the power of money changes from inflationary control and rent-seeking to actual deflationary value creation, that changes everything. Seeing that the future starts with letting go of blinders that keep us stuck in the past. Some dare to think out of the box; imagine what wealth means when it isn’t a dollar scorecard for self-importance but more time with family, friends, and creative pursuits.

Bitcoin is more than new money. It’s a systemic equalizer, limiting the ability of powerful interests to control or manipulate the financial system for their benefit. Anyone who accumulates a substantial amount of Bitcoin will have more than a passing familiarity with the underlying ethos. Will they be our new kleptocrat, or have they seen why so many are burning with the conviction of a Jehovah’s Witness? The true innovation of Bitcoin isn’t just the ledger itself but rather how it changes the rules of economic interaction.