Bit By Bit

Several Russian banks said on Sunday they would soon start issuing cards using the Chinese UnionPay card operator's system coupled with Russia's own Mir network, after Visa and MasterCard said they were suspending operations in Russia.

No, the end of the world has not come yet for Russia, after Visa and Mastercard have withdrawn their support and thus affecting millions of innocent people that have noting to do with this war, some of them actually protesting against it and risking fines and jail time for that.

These measures are nothing but a shit show imo and all this war that has hit in the individuals is going to end sooner than later. No one can afford to take it too far and the stake is not really that worth for such a fight. NATO and EU are probably aware already that they will never spread tentacles over there and know that Putin is going to fight till the end...

Moreover, both the US, EU and other external countries are reliant to Russian and Ukrainian natural resources, thus blowing in the wings of this war is not actually benefitting anyone. It's benefitting the oligarchs, to some extent, as these have probably had a head start of the war and dumped their stocks, buying back later.

Or investing heavily into oil, "while cheap"...

At the end of the day, though, the oligarchies are not "Russia exclusive", we have these in the US, Europe and almost everywhere in the world. They're all corrupt, Biden and his son making tons of money with Ukraine is corrupt, Trudeau, EU leaders and so on... are all the same.

Modern times call for modern ways of transacting and storing wealth and exchange currencies, but the traditional ones are lucrative when "the waters are calm". As soon as the wind starts blowing and the ground becomes shaky, you're on high risk territory.

There's all over twitter the fact that Russian oligarchs are seeing not only their bank accounts frozen but their crypto ones as well. Custodial services are something rich people can almost no longer live without. It's pointless to even think of storing billions of dollars in cash in your villas basement or travel with them and spend some across the world.

But that's what makes crypto apart and puts sovereignty in the hands of the user. All you need to become "an almost entirely free citizen of the world" is a ledger, store your keys safe, or memorize them, and you can travel all over the world holding your fortune safe and not being "that transparent" about it at all. Had the oligarchs do that, they would have avoided this "freezing season".

Latest events with Russia - Visa/Mastercard, Canadian donations frozen by gofundme and the exposure of the sharp teeth of our corrupt politicians are to be considered a wake up call towards custodial services and centralization. If you look at the world right now it looks like all sort of countries and institutions are competing at showing who's more centralized and totalitarian.

Bitcoin was created to be simple and safe to use for the end user. It's meant to once again give back our long lost sovereignty and the current tensions in the world are underlying its crucial role in the technology era we're living.

Hope everyone is having a great Sunday and see you to the next one.

Thanks for attention,
farisepo