The Power of Crypto...
The US government is shutting down (for the 14th time since the 80s), meaning governmental agencies are forced to close or cut non-essential expenses as a result of not being approved funding by the Congress.
I haven't followed the discussions to see why this particular shutdown happened. Government overspending is an issue in many places around the world, but I imagine in the US is even a bigger problem because of the hegemony of the dollar as a world currency over a long period, and the habit of issuing debt without any cap, knowing they would be purchased by someone who wanted USD.
This shutdown appears to be the reason for the surge in the price of crypto today. That shows, once more, that crypto benefits of the issues in the fiat systems. It is the same with the growing M2 supply to which BTC appears to correlate, even if not perfectly.
There is the reverse too. With the growing influence of stablecoins in the crypto space, fiat (USD, in particular) becomes a factor to consider, as a weight that needs to be pulled by crypto at times. So, there will be growing bidirectional influence. Some may think crypto is too small to influence fiat systems, but Tether currently is a Top 20 US Treasuries holder, having more of them than Germany, for example.
With that in mind—and with the recent escalations on the "who's got the bigger guns"' front—I have to wonder how the end of the year will look like. I believe in a serious uptrend in Q4, maybe the end of Q3 too, but these individuals who are called world leaders are playing with matches around a gas station, likely intentionally. Who knows what will happen if the gas station goes boom... Nothing good, I believe, for anyone, but a few.
Anyway... I have my goal to have 5000 in HBD savings by the year end, and I'll keep that going. But no more than that... until I know more.
Governments are on their course to become more and more totalitarian, even in the so-called democracies. I don't want to think about what will happen if a bigger war starts... So, I'd rather stick to more of the freedom money than fiat, even though the crypto space is also on route to being controlled (in its majority or the ways that matter for a higher adoption) by bigger players from the legacy system, with a few that grew in the crypto world (not in the fiat world) and got adopted out of necessity by the old system.
That being said... Today is Hive Power Up Day. Like always (in recent years), I powered up some HIVE. As I've been doing every day last month. I don't know what's in store for HIVE price-wise, but I'm using something in this ecosystem every day, and that matters to me.
Missed July, probably by a day or two... Other than that, things are looking good.
Happy HPUD! Hopefully, we'll see some interesting things at Hivefest, coming up in two weeks...
The lockdowns highlight the fragility of fiat currency systems and reinforce the idea that keeping a portion of our funds in cryptocurrencies and Hive makes more sense for long-term resilience.
Yeah, those were a wake-up call for many. I wonder if they'd do them again if they could turn back time.
I think the US is headed for big problems if they carry on doing crazy shit. The regime is corrupt. I hope the UK does not go that way, but the 'Reform' party is doing well in polls despite a lack of real policies apart from attacking immigrants. The current government are not doing themselves many favours and need to turn things around. Musk was speaking at a right wing demo about some sort of revolution and that's not helpful. He is off the rails. These are scary times.
I'm not totally convinced that crypto can save us, but maybe mine can at least gain some value. We need people to believe in it.
!BEER
All these guys know more than we do. And they position themselves.
Crypto depends on electricity and the internet. If we can decentralize those at the core, there is a chance. Otherwise, we trade some type of masters for others.
Right now, people are either entrenched in what appears to be irreconcilable positions, or they are too confused and not trusting anything.
I never understood how a super power like US can go in shut down like this every X years, with all the billions they spend, the power they have... Everyone is playing with fire, leaders don't care since they won't be going to the front... Russia said Poland and Ukraine are preparing a fake Russian attack on Poland land to then invoke art 5 of Nato... I'm kinda worried since it's not that fantasy they would do that, they blew nord stream and blamed Russia...
Actually, I think that's a healthy process. But only slows down the "printing" of new debt, because it will continue as usual once the parties agree again and shut down is over.
The front is everywhere... They shouldn't feel safe because they don't go the traditional front line, if a major war starts.
Yeah, I saw Russia prepared that "disclaimer". Which is precisely why I don't trust them. I don't trust the Ukrainians either. We will never really know who did it, if it happens. It will be one propaganda against the other, both lying through their teeth. They are doing it today too.
America is a superpower and it cannot remain closed for long. There will be a lot of damage. We will see. After a few days, everything will open again and the system will return to normal. We are not seeing its effect on crypto yet.
I just looked it up. The longest US gov't shutdown in history was for 35 days from 22 Dec 2018 to 25 Jan 2019, and it included the winter vacation (probably strategically forced before Christmas, to last longer). That was in Trump's 1st term.
Happy HPUD.
As for the shutdowns, I think it happens too often. I find that it's their way to push some large bill that can include their own interests. This time, its due to the money being spent and I don't think Trump/Republicans want to fold.
Ah, for sure. This is politicians flexing muscles. But a good side effect is that during that short period the government doesn't spend more. Of course, it can be inconvenient (if some services don't work normally) or even problematic (if they lose their jobs) to many.
https://x.com/jewellery_all/status/1973654252502581668
Crypto always seems to do well when traditional systems start stumbling, the shutdowns just proves how fragile fiat really is, blockchain keeps running 24/7. I hope they don't just look at is as safer alternative but the future
If the "alternative" proves to be better, it eventually replaces the legacy system.
It eventually does
https://x.com/lee19389/status/1973903218506952846
#hive #posh