In decades to come, it may be they say it’s in this 2022 when the crypto era really began for its power is being shown in full force and there may yet be more to come.
In Russia, the cost of war is being born by the people of Russia, and to prevent them from escaping such cost, they have imposed strict capital controls.
You can’t quite control bitcoin however. You can censor the Russian media, you can arrest Russian protesters, even children, but you can not stop the Russian people from exercising a certain right to vote, a vote to exit Russia’s fiat system by buying bitcoin.
As much of this trading is peer to peer, figures are not available for just how much funds are being taken off Russia’s war efforts and are being sent to the crypto economy where their president Vladimir Putin has no jurisdiction.
We presume a substantial amount because bitcoin touched $45,000 today, up from $38,000 a week ago.
That’s because it is showing a clear superiority best illustrated by the fact that Russians, at least for today and this whole week, no longer have stocks and shares.
Their savings in those investments have evaporated overnight because some midget decided to just suspend the stock exchange completley.
Technically, Russians still have their shares. Practically, they’ve lost 100% of their savings for as long as this suspension continues.
This subtly reveals something quite fundamental: the entire Russian economy, at least the publicly traded one, is owned by the government and you don’t practically own anything.
That couldn’t be the case if these shares were tokens in an immutable public blockchain. In that case, a plunge would have occurred to the enragement of the people who may have all risen to put an end to the war.
That rage instead has been suspended, and just like that Putin can keep bombing with the Russian people not instantly feeling the effects, but slow boiled into what may well be a catastrophe.
Cryptoing Ukraine
And if crypto is anti-war by these examples, it is also pro peace. Putin vaguely understood the power of it. His ally Venezuela tried to issue some government bonds, but they were on an ‘exotic’ public blockchain where the many good qualities of crypto were lacking.
As a first, we excused it, but then Iran tried to do one thing or another to the point we had to conclude that it was probable they were both being advised by Russia, and that Russia lacks that properness in crypto skills.
The country is behind, clearly, and one reason for it is because it has always been under dictatorship.
Ukraine, which was part of the communist collective of the Soviet Union just a few decades ago, shows just what difference a governance model of liberalism makes in the matters of science, and thus pretty much everything else.
Despite having far less manpower, they’re going straight to the hot trend in their first attempt to do something crypto related at the government level by issuing a token to anyone that donated to their war efforts.
They’re also doing it on the ethereum public blockchain, the biggest in the world for this sort of thing, and so they’re getting the attention of everyone from a tech and finance perspective because this is a national government itself doing bonds or similar things on a new global technology for the first time with the apparent right execution.
Just how it will develop remains to be seen of course. Nowadays no one has to list it because it can bootstrap on defi exchanges straight away, with volumes then making the listing in global giants like Coinbase inevitable.
A century ago they would have issued war bonds, papers, to bankers first, who might have refused or otherwise, and then to the public.
Their own public, primarily because paper is physical and so distance matters, limiting considerably reach.
Half a century ago their bond might have listed on stock brokers, with the process here similar whether by phone or by internet in that the market for the bond would primarily be for fairly sophisticated and reasonably wealthy investors, with it limited by the slow process of brokers bringing it to market, and with its availability being dependent on your broker.
This may have taken months, while with crypto, it’s not only taking days but its market is the globe itself and anyone with a smartphone. Not the reasonably wealthy, not some local, and not dependent on a broker, but any and all with any amount of money that wants to buy it by just connecting to the internet and putting MetaMask on.
In addition, there is no banker here that can say no, or get pressured by Russia, or play the Russia and Ukraine war through financing. It’s direct to the public with the funds going straight to the government itself.
How much funds? That’s to be seen but crypto listings are usually an exciting thing. Maybe $1 billion, or maybe it turns into a dud but it could also be $10 billion or more.
It depends on whether it is seen as a donation or an actual investment with revenue – eventually if they win – although it is probably a bit of both.
And win they should because they’re showing in one week what Russia has been unable to pull for four years: technical ability to pull off a crypto endeavor in a useful manner.
If they do win, Ukraine may then become some sort of a crypto hot spot, especially if the government repays the favor and makes the token some sort of legal tender.
On the PR front, they are winning and arguably overwhelmingly so. They have the internet backing them, the hackers, the governments, the whole world.
The situation is dire however, but can a democracy really be defeated by brute force?
This has all the best tales of history. A people longing to be free, fighting the Gremlin, fighting for liberalism, with the promised land at the other end of it.
$100 billion has already been promised to rebuild Ukraine if they repel the Russian invasion, and though the odds are against, Sparta did beat Persia, David did beat Golitha.
For the spirit of man remains a mystery, as does the power of that spirit. So while Russia says geopolitics, Ukraine says liberty and democracy. While Russia says 19th century, Ukraine demands this very 2020s with cryptos, starlinks and NFTs.
Their story, unlike current Russia, is what inspires the pen as well. Including this poem, our very own of course, called The Light:
The towers stand, amind aglobe
Galileo, Aristotel.
In shadowss here, of centuries lord
the civilized man.
Evolving in, our own minute, like cat the mouse, and mouse the living.
With tongues of pleasure, with hands of god, angels devils battle loud.
All spektate actors, in history’s year, as transparent donkeys, go and play.
What joy, to them, ambition!
What care, achievement!
What dreeam of phantazy, the sky is nota he.
What yellow colo wavin, black, it must beeee
what dream, what ambition, the boot, belivammee.
Ajajajajjaa ja
You slave of men
Auauauauaa
you serapent.
To the ground, our ideas still living
to the grass, and still thriving
for iron, the heart of man
only pen, the commaaand.
Revolution, in your minds
revolution, o you ants
so by choice, withdraw consanto
90s ours, even with waaar.
No more pleading, no more thinking
to barbaris, their own faults
bring the gates, of solid goldaan, and today lets sing thy song.
Never beateen, never thirsty, never hungry, never safe.
never ooof this eearth so bland
always frooom the skies abave.
Never hearing, never talking
never oooo neva thinking
never ooooff these wata trees
but from laaand of galaxiees.
I am here, but not my air
I do see, but not the plain
I am god, you are god men
ours the play, and ours the game.
By the union, obbjectivas,
call your senses, and your minds
we are many, we are one
rise you form of gravitas.
Chain the forceess, of entropy, keep on fighting, for energy
with all tricks, of devil aloud, and with the weight of all around.
For there comes a time, when the future is designed
within the air, the heavy air of oldy one.
Some must guard, some must fight, all grandpas will give way
our designs, for tomorooooooo not today.
Move you ants, action react
scatter forth, undaa gaaad
move for life, this globe around
feel the joy, and feel the hert.
To keep way, at central station, evolution, of all nation
for the games, are generations, and the best does live to dayayaay.
Source: https://www.trustnodes.com/2022/03/02/crypto-ukraine-v-bankers-russia-who-gone-win