Introduction
Scholars dispute whether it was Mahatma Gandhi who first said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” What cannot be disputed is that advocates of bitcoin have adopted the aphorism as their own.
Bitcoiners commonly prophesize that at some point, bitcoin will replace the US dollar as the world’s predominant store of value.[1] Less frequently discussed is the essential question of exactly how such a transition might take place and what risks may lie along the path, especially if the issuers of fiat currency choose to fight back against challenges to their monetary monopolies.
Will the US government and other Western governments willingly adapt to an emerging bitcoin standard, or will they take restrictive measures to prevent the replacement of fiat currencies? If bitcoin does indeed surpass the dollar as the world’s most widely used medium of exchange, will a transition from the dollar to bitcoin be peaceful and benign, like the evolution from Blockbuster Video to Netflix? Or will it be violent and destructive, as with Weimar Germany and the Great Depression? Or somewhere in between?
Then They Fight You: Bitcoin and the United States’ Fiscal Crossroads
Source: Then They Fight You: Bitcoin and the United States’ Fiscal Crossroads
