by Dr. Chris Kacher
Freedom is the use case of crypto
When we look back centuries ago, there was no separation of church and state. Given where the world sits, separation of money and state is now undergoing intense scrutiny. While Web3's use case is freedom to communicate, Bitcoin's use case is freedom to transact. Bitcoin separates money and state. You cant create more of Bitcoin beyond what is allowed by its code which has never been violated, ie, no double spend, etc. Bitcoin is a store of wealth not in the absolute sense of being stable, but in the decentralized sense that it is governed by code that no one can break. No central bank can manipulate how many Bitcoin are in circulation. Unlike central bank controlled fiat, it cannot be inflated away.
Traditional fiat has and always will be devalued by central banks. It is only a matter of time before the Fed moves from QE-lite to full blown QE, spurred by another crisis. This is why crypto which acts as fuel for the metaverse is so important. Crypto is the counterbalance to government control over our money. Bitcoin IS the magna carta of code. There are no constitutional rights without the freedom to transact. Without the freedom to communicate or transact value, all other freedoms collapse. Decentralization of existing platforms is the way forward as it quashes censorship and cancelation of a user.
CBDCs (central bank digital currencies) are an intentional effort to revoke this freedom under the guise of convenience. The Canadian government’s response to the truckers protests nicely illustrates this when they froze the bank accounts of those who tried to help the truckers.
Ultimately, it is good when the citadels of truth and benevolence coincide. The Web3 metaverse ensures that. Web3 is composable meaning anyone can build on anyone's creation. This spurs exponential growth across decentralized autonomous organizations or DAOs, some of which will become hyperstructures such as Uniswap where no central authority can stop its growth. This is akin to p2p file sharing that underwent mass adoption with the launch of Napster in the mid-1990s. Governments tried to shut off all the front ends such as Pirates bay file exchange sites, but for every Pirates Bay shut down, ten new ones sprung up like mushrooms. In consequence, the number of users mushroomed from a couple million to over 100 million over the next decade. Fair platforms such as Netflix and iTunes have legitimately attracted such users away from illegal file sharing. So I would hope we learned that strong-arming users into not violating copyright law had little effect, compared to the launch of economically fair platforms where users could legitimately watch or buy product.
But while the bear market remains in force, the best technologies such as DeFi's Uniswap and metaverse and gaming platforms such as Decentraland (MANA) and Sandbox (SAND) will likely correct further before finding major lows if history of prior bear markets is any guide.Markets
Both stock and crypto market remain in major overall downtrends. The meeting minutes were released on Wednesday. Some Fed members have suggested higher terminal rates though it has also been suggested that should December's CPI and PPI come in below expectations once again, the Fed could end up pausing hikes after December due to the growing number of delinquencies, the onerous amount of interest rate payments on the still massive amount of debt, and improvement on the supply-side part of the inflation equation due to healing supply chains. While many assume this means the bear market in stocks and crypto markets will end, the massive QE bubble still needs to be unwound. Further, the Fed must remain hawkish because inflation is still too high, and well above the Fed's target 2%. In consequence, the likelihood of a pause in hikes remains low.