{"id":17175,"date":"2023-07-28T15:19:03","date_gmt":"2023-07-28T19:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo2.dedicatedhost247.com\/crypto\/if-bitcoiners-dont-do-more-cbdcs-will-win\/"},"modified":"2023-07-28T15:19:03","modified_gmt":"2023-07-28T19:19:03","slug":"if-bitcoiners-dont-do-more-cbdcs-will-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo2.dedicatedhost247.com\/crypto\/if-bitcoiners-dont-do-more-cbdcs-will-win\/","title":{"rendered":"If Bitcoiners Don\u2019t Do More, CBDCs Will Win"},"content":{"rendered":"


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<\/p>\n

This is an opinion editorial by Logan Chipkin, a professional writer <\/em>who creates educational content about Bitcoin and other topics.<\/em><\/p>\n

In \u201cThe Fiat Standard<\/a>,\u201d economist Saifedean Ammous argues at length that the United States federal government has been propagandizing the masses into choosing \u201ccheap industrial substitutes\u201d and \u201cmassively reducing (its) meat consumption\u201d since at least 1916. <\/p>\n

As Ammous wrote:<\/p>\n

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\u201c…the ADA (American Dietetics Association) is responsible for formulating the dietary guidelines taught at most nutrition and medical schools worldwide, meaning it has for a century shaped the way nutritionists and doctors (mis)understand nutrition. The astonishing consequence is that the vast majority of people, nutritionists, and doctors today think that animal fat is harmful, while grains are healthy, necessary, and safe!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In other words, even though a meat-centered diet is superior to a grain-centered one, the government and its quasi-private partners succeeded in persuading millions of people into opting for the latter.<\/p>\n

Ammous raises the topic of dietary guidelines as just one example of how a fiat standard distorts an industry, but there\u2019s another lesson in this story that Bitcoiners have to grapple with: <\/p>\n

Even if your product is the best on the market, governments (and other entities) are capable of spreading narratives that persuade citizens to choose an inferior alternative. <\/em><\/p>\n

If it happened with food, it could happen with money. <\/p>\n

A CBDC Punch-Counterpunch<\/h2>\n

On July 10, 2023, Karin Strohecker published an article in Reuters titled, \u201cTwenty-Four Central Banks Will Have Digital Currencies By 2030, Survey Shows<\/a>.\u201d Apparently, a couple dozen central banks have been making \u201cgreat\u201d progress in their development of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Strohecker wrote that these central banks have been \u201cworking on digital versions of their currencies for retail use to avoid leaving digital payments to the private sector <\/em>(emphasis added) amid an accelerating decline of cash.\u201d<\/p>\n

This purported motivation behind CBDCs has been brewing for a while \u2014 in August 2022, the European Central Bank (ECB) released a report called \u201cTowards The Holy Grail Of Cross-Border Payments<\/a>.\u201d In it, the authors compared the merits and demerits of various technological implementations of a cross-border payment solution that might be \u201cimmediate, cheap, universal and settled in a secure settlement medium.\u201d Of the candidates they considered, they concluded that \u201cBitcoin is least credible\u201d and that \u201cthe interlinking of domestic instant payment systems and future CBDCs, both with a competitive FX conversion layer\u201d are the two most credible solutions.<\/p>\n

While the ECB left out any remark about the risks that CBDCs pose to citizens\u2019 privacy and sovereignty, River Financial responded with a report<\/a> of its own. Spearheaded by River\u2019s Sam Wouters, this report does <\/em>explain the gaping hole in the ECB\u2019s argument for CBDCs, as well as the technological barriers that Bitcoin ought to overcome if it\u2019s going to be adopted worldwide.<\/p>\n

Readers can review the technical and quantitative arguments of both ECB and River Financial for themselves \u2014 my purpose in bringing up this punch-counterpunch is that the battle between freedom-money and tyranny-money is not <\/em>one that we will win by default, and that it\u2019s as much a battle for hearts and minds as it is for product superiority. Much like the propaganda campaign that persuaded people to switch from healthier diets to those that the government preferred, central banks are levying their best words, videos and other marketing techniques to convince people that CBDCs are superior to Bitcoin.<\/p>\n

And, in the end, their victory is possible.<\/p>\n

Understanding The Education Process<\/h2>\n

We<\/em> know that Bitcoin solves humanity\u2019s many monetary problems far better than CBDCs do. We <\/em>recognize the havoc that rampant inflation wreaks on nations. We <\/em>understand that lacking a store of value is the cause of so many anti-civilizational behaviors. But that\u2019s not enough. If others don\u2019t understand the fiat origins of these problems, they don\u2019t stand a chance of appreciating Bitcoin as their solution. Whether or not central banks recognize the importance of this knowledge in the battle over the future of money, they\u2019re certainly taking every opportunity they can to spread ideas that push Bitcoin to the outskirts and earn CBDCs widespread acceptability. <\/p>\n

\u201cBitcoin bad, CBDCs good,\u201d the people think. And that\u2019s all central banks need, the inferiority of their product be damned.<\/p>\n

As Wouters rightly pointed out in his report:<\/p>\n

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\u201cGreat strides have been made in education, but if Bitcoiners who are less experienced in education want to accelerate adoption, they would benefit from gaining a deeper understanding of the education process to take ownership of it and become more effective. This starts by understanding the gap between their perspective and knowledge and that of the recipient\u2026 (S)ome people inside the Bitcoin space are not aware enough of how difficult it is for the average person to go through this journey.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As much as Wouters heroically explains the \u201chow,\u201d \u201cwhat,\u201d and \u201cwhy\u201d of the technological improvements that will help Bitcoin achieve widespread adoption, none of these holds a candle to people’s ideas <\/em>about money. Even if Bitcoin eventually becomes as easy to use as credit cards or cash, the masses could still reject it in favor of CBDCs for purely-ideological reasons. Grain will have defeated meat once again.<\/p>\n

This is no reason to despair. Bitcoin isn\u2019t inevitable, no. But victory is possible<\/em>, and its fate is largely determined on the ideological battlefield. The gap between our deepest explanation of monetary economics and most people’s views on the subject is vast. The same goes for the problems that fiat money continues to cause, the dangers of CBDCs, and how and why Bitcoin is a panacea for most of our money problems. <\/p>\n

The educational effort before us is enormous, but, in the face of the enemy\u2019s propaganda, necessary. And it\u2019s thrilling<\/em> \u2014 billions of people are about to learn about the greatest civilizational battle they hadn\u2019t even known was occurring right under their noses. <\/p>\n

Our war is an ideological one. Bitcoin doesn\u2019t have to suffer the same fate as meat \u2014 and the industrial sludge that is CBDCs can perish in the sewers of history. We have persuading to do.<\/p>\n

This is a guest post by Logan Chipkin. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n


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This is an opinion editorial by Logan Chipkin, a professional writer who creates educational content about Bitcoin and other topics. In \u201cThe Fiat Standard,\u201d economist Saifedean Ammous argues at length that the United States federal government has been propagandizing the masses into choosing \u201ccheap industrial substitutes\u201d and \u201cmassively reducing (its) meat consumption\u201d since at least 1916. As Ammous wrote: \u201c…the ADA (American Dietetics Association) is responsible for formulating the dietary guidelines taught at most nutrition and medical schools worldwide, meaning it has for a century shaped the way nutritionists and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[30],"tags":[2276,2672,1098,383],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo2.dedicatedhost247.com\/crypto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17175"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo2.dedicatedhost247.com\/crypto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo2.dedicatedhost247.com\/crypto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo2.dedicatedhost247.com\/crypto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo2.dedicatedhost247.com\/crypto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo2.dedicatedhost247.com\/crypto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo2.dedicatedhost247.com\/crypto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo2.dedicatedhost247.com\/crypto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo2.dedicatedhost247.com\/crypto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo2.dedicatedhost247.com\/crypto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}