Bitcoin: in case of world crisis, break the glass

How does Bitcoin react during a world crisis?

In the frenzied rhythms of the pre-Covid19 era, there was no time to stop and think, so everything was taken for granted, without worrying too much about fiat currencies or quantitative easing. 

However, the virus interrupted our everyday life and with it also the economy, forcing us to open our eyes to a systemic crisis that we ignored for too long in the hope that it would resolve itself, almost like waking up from a bad dream. 

The idea that printing money endlessly is the only way to salvation is not only illusory but also tremendously dangerous. It is as if to soothe the pain our priority was exclusively morphine, neglecting the gangrene that sooner or later will lead us to death. 

Unfortunately what is missing today (blatantly) is a long-term perspective, a New Deal that does not take shape because of a lack of political projects and a lack of trust. 

While statesmen intervene on political projects (fortunate whoever has them), regaining trust in institutions, the financial ones above all, is a truly titanic effort for anyone who intends to take charge. 

But then, with what instruments will we face the thick black clouds on the horizon? No one seems to be able to give an answer to this question other than bazooka shots or loans from the European Stability Mechanism. 

And yet, the handle to pull in case of emergency not only exists but is also a pretty big one. 

Bitcoin during the world crisis

The more one studies the bitcoin project, the more one understands the vastness of its scope and the great consequences that its mass adoption could have on the inhabitants of planet Earth. 

However, we remain in the territory of trust. 

We know that it is lost when those who ask for it, once obtained, abuse it indiscriminately to the point of complete loss of credibility. 

With the advent of bitcoin and blockchain technology, the problem is solved at the source: trust is split from individuals or institutions to be entrusted to a distributed ledger that is too big and too expensive to be corrupted or distorted by someone to the detriment of someone else. 

The principle of the distributed database works in the exact opposite direction of the oligarchic centralization of the world’s major financial institutions and, to be honest, it’s the only foothold that could get us out of a possible vertical collapse of trust in the current economic-financial system. 

But while several institutional entities (fortunately growing in number) have definitely cleared bitcoin and are preparing to grant citizenship to the crypto-asset community, a hardcore of ancien regime entities continues to identify cryptocurrencies as the absolute evil. 

For some time now, bitcoin has stood the test of time and has become a solid reality. 

Even its proverbial volatility (the cross and the delight of speculators) is nothing more than a simple sin of youth, probably destined to be appeased as it reaches maturity in the light of the total supply. 

What should shock us is not the fact that a project of freedom has come to fruition without asking permission from the dominant culture; what is disturbing is rather the ignorance and prejudice that are the real limits to the mass adoption of a great invention. 

But while in the officialdom of declarations no government dares to admit that they are holding bitcoin or shorting the public debt, some of these same governments are unnecessarily squandering large sums of money in an attempt to legally contain something that is completely outside their paradigmatic universe. 

In the same way, it is conceivable that quite a few chancelleries have thought it would be more convenient to internalize or at most copy bitcoin and the underlying technology rather than oppose it by any means. After all, if the centralized financial world were to collapse, in order to face the fire of a new world economic crisis, it would be appropriate to overcome all false modesty and to break the glass of the bitcoin fire extinguisher put there on purpose to save us. 

Paolo Menegatti