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January 22 - January 23, 2021
In places like Bahrain, Russia, and Zimbabwe, the government exerts dictatorial control over the banking system, resulting in high levels of embezzlement and corruption.
It's estimated that only 8% of all global transactions are still carried out with coins or notes. By 2030, the number of people who can meaningfully use cash in their daily lives will be close to zero.
A cashless society is a surveillance society. Whether it is with the government-controlled WeChat model or the corporate-controlled Libra model, companies can track all economic activity for profit, oppression or worse.
Unlike payment processors and many banks, Bitcoin has not been meaningfully hacked since the price rose above $0.10 in 2010. No one's coins have ever been stolen at the network level.
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In any case, the absolute majority of financial crime in today's world is carried out using the existing financial system via regulated banks and money transmitters. Most fraud is committed by governments and multinational corporations, not by rogue individuals.
Even a large, wealthy, police state cannot prevent its citizenry from using Bitcoin. Because the network has no single point of failure, governments cannot turn off the Bitcoin network.
The internet was once completely open and public. As users and businesses required more private transactions, engineers added layers of privacy on top of the original internet. Private communication is now possible using apps that send automatically encrypted messages. Bitcoin is following a similar path.
