The silent revolution

 

From Redza Arbee

If you’re a retiree concerned about your pension, or a middle-class person worried about your savings and the rising cost of living, this topic has an impact on you.

If you’re a working-class person in the lower income group and concerned about building a better future for your children, or a fresh graduate or undergraduate worried about your future prospects in the economy, this topic, too, has an impact on you.

Yet, there has been a severe lack of the necessary coverage, discussion and attention on this topic.

I am referring to the very thing that humanity has accepted as money.

But what is money?

Why do we use what we do now as money and how will the global civilisation look like if we didn’t use it?

Ultimately, why should one even care?

What if I told you that if we agree to use what I want us to use as money, I can steal anything of value or productivity you may generate without touching a single cent in your digital or physical wallet?

What if I told you I can also enrich someone close to me and impoverish those who disagree with me?

What if I told you the root cause of every problem the world faces today comes down to our collective lack of understanding of the concept of money and what we have all agreed (willingly or otherwise) to use as money?

How would all this make you feel?

Have you ever wondered who decides how much your money is worth? And how much control they have over it?

Ultimately, what if I also tell you that there may potentially be a solution to all these problems but it requires active participation, public scrutiny and transparency?

At the 2024 Nashville Bitcoin Conference (now president-elect) Donald Trump announced plans to create a “strategic national bitcoin stockpile” and a “bitcoin and crypto advisory council” and turn the US into the “crypto capital of the world”.

At the same conference, senator Cynthia Lummis also announced that “over five years, the US will assemble a million bitcoin”.

Trump also said that “there will never be a CBDC (central bank digital currency) while I am president of the US”.

Why?

Why does it seem (to me, at least) like there is a race among global central banks together with the Bank for International Settlements to develop their own CBDC?

Why do BRICS member countries want to set up an alternative settlement currency to replace the US dollar?

In my view, the real world war being waged now is over who will define and determine the new global unit of account – the standard used to measure the value of everything we buy and use.

I would also argue then that if a new unit of account that is centralised, based on debt (riba or usury) and lacks public scrutiny, is globally adopted it could usher in a new era of tyranny and digital dystopia unlike anything we’ve seen in recorded history.

It will enable those who control it unlimited hold over anyone and anything that adopts it.

Dystopian concepts like forced spending, restricted fungibility and social credits (to name but a few) will be commonplace, and that will have an impact on the very fabric of our collective and fundamental human rights.

Imagine your ability to spend money on certain goods were restricted based on personal data or social behaviour ratings, or if access to basic needs was tied to conformity with arbitrary rules.

Through a digitalised debt-based unit of account, those who control it will be able to transfer (steal) the purchasing power from one group and give it to whomever they choose.

This transfer of wealth through inflation of the money supply can be done at a scale beyond what we currently experience and in a much more targeted way.

Without public scrutiny and transparency, decisions can be made and rules can be written without the best interest of the people being taken into account.

Instead, a new unit of account for global adoption must be decentralised in such a way that no single actor or entity can impose undue influence over its network and rules.

For example, a decentralised unit of account – like bitcoin – is governed not by any single entity but by the collective agreement of its users.

Its rules are transparent and immutable, ensuring that no one can manipulate its value for personal gain.

Additionally, a new unit of account has to be resistant to the possibility of value dilution through inflation of the underlying money supply.

This would insulate those who adopt it from having their purchasing power eroded over time.

Further, one has to be given the choice to opt in rather than forced to adopt this account.

As a cautionary note, we must also have additional firewalls to protect the privacy of users from excessive financial surveillance that can have a negative impact on their fundamental human rights.

At the end of the day, the burden and responsibility of this decision and outcome is upon our collective shoulders.

How we choose to act today will have an impact on countless generations to come.

The choice of what we ultimately use as money is far from trivial. It shapes the very balance of power in society.

Will we ignore this critical decision and risk our fundamental freedoms and rights?

Or will we selflessly face it head-on for the benefit of future generations? - FMT

Redza Arbee is the former head of digital adoption at sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional Bhd.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.