The spirit of crypto

Crypto currency since the first Bitcoin minted has been a silent revolution which is increasing in crescendo as years go by. It heralded a world where the financial freedom of masses could be free from the control and manipulation of governments. Man dreamt of a life of a free man living a free life without the bondage of any mental and physical border at least financially.

From a few followers in the beginning, now millions of like minded people are making the crypto journey together all around the world. Crypto has been successful in striking at the base of the traditional financial system and root out the evils of that system. Now people can dream of being financially well off without depending on the traditional system, that is, rise the financial ladder and dream of something bigger than what the traditional financial system could ever give him. Also it gives a potential to never use fiat, if there is wider adoption.  

It would be foolish to accept that the governments around the world would sit and look but do nothing about it. Governments don’t stand on the pillars of democracy. Without fiat money no governments will survive. So as expected, the governments retaliated with imposing regulations and threats in the name of customer protection and to the extent of banning also. The easiest way to control has been to choke the ‘on ramps’ and ‘off ramps’. The centralized exchanges have been targeted with KYC. KYC is just opposite of what crypto is all about, and added to that is providing of data to government regulators by these exchanges as a means to prevent money laundering. As of today every centralized exchange is adopting it. What was supposed to be anonymous is now not so any more. Banks and credit cards companies have done their part in trying to control the free flow of funds from fiat to crypto.

Now the middle path has been adopted where governments can tax the crypto gains, limit its use case as a method of peer to peer or peer to business transactions for goods and services but not to the extent of a blanket ban. The governments are coming up with their own ‘so called crypto’ in the form of CBDC, though we know that CBDC would be just opposite of crypto. In the world that is run on fiat, we can say that even if the government bans crypto but it cannot take away my crypto as the blockchain cannot be regulated and I hold the private key to it.

But in the worst case scenario of the government closing all exchanges and stopping any payment of goods and services through crypto then what would be the fate of crypto. At present the crypto is as valuable as its fiat valuation but when that door is closed then what would happen to the value of crypto we hold. Now we cannot convert it to fiat nor use it to buy and sell things. The only thing we would be able to do is sending it from one person to another without any intrinsic fiat value of it. Though some back door systems would develop to overcome this but that would be termed as illegal. I think with no financial peg, its price would plummet and the use and benefit of holding crypto will cease. This could very well mark the end of crypto.

Can the governments do this- yes, will they do it- not likely. As long as the crypto adoption is low there is no sufficient threat to the government to take extreme steps. The time when every shopkeeper, every business, every hospital will be accepting crypto is still a distant dream. The day when a person will not need to convert crypto to fiat to pay for expenses is quite far. The day every government will accept crypto as a means of payment between them is not likely to happen anytime soon. I think till that time crypto is safe.

Can this borderless permission less spirit of crypto be used a unifying the world as one world where people will not have to face any barrier to go from one country to another, work in any other country without any bottleneck, a singular currency all around the world – a one world in its true meaning and as an unified human race. Can we rise above our fractions and frictions to create something bigger and better? Can be imbibe the true spirit of crypto within us? Only time will tell.