- Crypto is now a $1T industry
- Bitcoin and Ethereum have enabled >$1T in annual transaction volume
- Decentralized finance has ~$30B in assets
- Coinmarketcap.com is more popular than the Wall Street Journal!
It is now a global phenomenon.
NATIONAL SECURITY
Crypto defends India's national security by foiling deplatforming.
Bitcoin prevents financial deplatforming. Digital gold is a rail of last resort for crises like 2008.
And Ethereum prevents social deplatforming. Create social networks the US can't shut down.
FOREIGN INVESTMENT
A favorable crypto policy would attract billions in investment to India, causing capital landing rather than capital flight.
Bitcoin is very popular among CEOs and investors. And at $200k per BTC, an estimated 50% of global billionaires will come from crypto.
REMITTANCES & REMOTE
- 400M Indians are newly online
- COVID has created a remote economy
- India earns $150B+ from BPO
- And receives $80B+ from remittances
So: India is poised for an absolutely massive boom in remote work & remittances, with crypto serving as the catalyst.
MONETARY POLICY
Why does India hold 600 tons of gold? Because in a crisis the rupee may need to be gold-backed. By analogy, a digital rupee may need to be *digital-gold backed*.
Gold is not a threat to India, gold has historically been an *asset* for India. Digital gold is too.
TRUSTWORTHY ACCOUNTING
Here's a little known fact: major accounting firms now use blockchains as a gold standard in audits, because they can't be falsified.
India could use on-chain accounting to build a financial system that leapfrogs the world. The next step for IndiaStack?
A FINANCIAL INTERNET
Just like the internet digitized movies, music, and all types of media, blockchains enable a *financial internet* that is digitizing currencies, stocks, bonds, and all types of assets.
It's imperative that India have access to the financial internet!
CRYPTO APIS > CORPORATE APIS
India already encourages the use of open source over proprietary code when available.
It should prefer crypto APIs over corporate APIs for the same reason, because blockchains aren't just open source: they're also open state & open execution.
FOREIGN POLICY
A renewed non-aligned movement will play a balancing role in the US/China Cold War.
India should reposition it as a *decentralized movement* that advocates crypto protocols as a successor to the rules-based order, starting with finance. balajis.com/why-india-shou…
BECOME A GLOBAL LEADER
As the world's 3rd largest economy in PPP terms, India could lead a decentralized movement to develop provably fair crypto platforms, neutral systems outside both American and Chinese control that all countries can embrace.
It's time for a bold move.
RECOMMENDATIONS
1) Ship digital rupee backed by digital gold 2) Add on-chain accounting + "stockchain" to IndiaStack 3) Attract crypto capital with smart laws 4) Build decentralized protocols for the world
Crypto is a $1T industry on track to become a $10T industry.
India’s entire GDP is $3T.
A crypto ban would cost India trillions in growth. Economic growth is also a national security issue; whatever the ban hopes to achieve may be done more cheaply another way.
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The state is going to pursue killer AI. It’s called drones.
So the entire idea of “AI safety” regulation is moot. For better or worse, the drone arms race has begun and you have to defend yourself.
The state may *also* try to regulate open source AI. But that isn’t because it’s a threat to you. It’s because they think of tech in general as a threat to them.
Take the EU. In the name of protecting privacy we got cookie banners. Now in the name of AI safety we get logic bans.
Because the only secure backends are onchain. Web2 systems get hacked all the time, but Ethereum doesn’t. So that’s where the drone private keys will be stored.
Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore did well in the 20th century while the Chinese mainland was gripped by a mind virus.
Quite possible that Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore do well in the 21st century while the Western world is gripped by a mind virus.
Why Australia and New Zealand?
They’re arguably the best-run countries in the Anglo world. I compiled some graphs in the thread below. But you can see that they’re qualitatively less indebted than the G7.
REALITY PRECEDES PROSPERITY
I think we agree on one point and disagree on two points.
THE BUKELE ANTIBODIES 1) First, yes, force alone is not the recipe for an ailing country. Ultimately you need community. Latin America suffered from generations of drug dealing and money printing. So now they have developed antibodies in the form of crime prevention and Bitcoin adoption. And Bukele is the incarnation of those antibodies. But society basically has to be ready to turn around before a Bukele can appear. He can wield force against the 1.6% of criminals because he has much of the 98.4% of non-criminals on his side.
I saw this in India as well, after generations of socialism. And in Vietnam, after generations of communism. Those societies finally had the antibodies to fight off the mind viruses that had brought them low. Of course, many societies just succumb. Is Cambodia mounting a comeback anytime soon? Or North Korea, or Cuba? Not really.
This is also the problem in the US. Many in the US have yet to even acknowledge it's declining. Many Democrats are Stalinist Bidenists, whose monthly checks are dependent on mouthing the party line. And many Republicans have replaced G-o-d with G-o-v. They see the US military as a god replacement, in its stern father form, and can't bring themselves to admit the country ain't what it was. They're Soviet conservatives, patriotic to a fault, saluting the worst because they've captured the flag.
I don't think this is true for everyone — people like @realchrisrufo and @davereaboi know what time it is — but it's true for too many. If you still think, like Biden recently said, that his empire is still "the most powerful country in the history of the world" and that it just isn't trying or is like one election away from being fixed — you are wrong in a deep way.
The values that underpin the valuations have been broken. The current society is coasting on fumes. Fixing this is at least a generational rebuild. It's not something one vote will solve.
IT'S NOT RICH 2) We also disagree that the US is a rich country. It has a fake economy, built on debt, with exponentially increasing interest payments, that doesn't have much runway left, and doesn't have factories to fall back on when the money printing stops.
For example:
^ Why are interest payments suddenly spiking? Because the bill for QE is coming due. Either die by high inflation or high rates. Or both.
^ Why is the country issuing debt at emergency levels, without acknowledging it's an emergency? Because that's the only thing that can keep this fake economy afloat through the 2024 election.
^ Why is China the world's #1 trade partner on just about every physical good? Because the US only exports (a) printed money and (b) technology. Anyway, I could keep going, with literally dozens of graphs like this. But X only allows four per post.
IT'S NOT STABLE 3) On the topic of whether it's a country with a "turbulent history of...violence", the level of drug addiction, violent crime, homeless encampments, squatters, road blockages, and massive BLM/Hamas mobs swarming the streets has obviously spiked in recent years.
2020 didn't represent a one-off, it's a preview of what is to come, particularly in Blue America. Crime statistics are systematically faked — in San Francisco, you can actually see some dashboards where things like car ticketing have gone to zero — so we don't have an accurate picture.
Until you see undeniable things like stores closing and people moving out of blue states. And then blue politicians yell at those companies, and try to stop them from moving out. This is systematic: blues always disable the warning lights that tell you we're crashing into the ground, just like the mortgages labeled AAA in 2008, just as a mosquito anesthetizes you before drinking your blood, just as a snake evolves to employ camouflage before it strikes. Alongside lawfare, faking the stats is a core competency of both communist reds and woke blues.
TLDR: I think we just have very different mental models of the prosperity and stability of today's United States. Wokeness is hegemonic and the damage is deep. I wish it weren't so — but agreeing on reality precedes prosperity.
A few more citations follow 👇
Here's how SF fakes its crime statistics. The law is not enforced so the crime is not reported.
This is a BLM/Hamas mob.
And this is a scene from World War Z.
Complete with the fast zombies.
That guy in the car did nothing wrong.
Other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Namely, Blue America.
This doesn't happen in a stable country.
These are the options. I get the logic, but banning signals technological and cultural weakness. Yet so does capitulation of the Newsom variety. The best way is to build something *better* than China, as Elon and others in tech have done.