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Balaji Srinivasan Profile picture
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Mar 10 • 9 tweets • 5 min read
No, gold was defeated by the state. FDR seized the gold of US citizens with Executive Order 6102.
theconversation.com/how-the-us-gov… Image
This was just a particularly explicit version of how centralized states expropriated individuals over the 20th century to fund their operations.

Gold was seized at $20.67, then the dollar was devalued so it was $35 per ounce. The state booked the profit.
federalreservehistory.org/essays/gold-re… Image
Even Krugman admits it: fiat currency is backed by men with guns.
Let's go through some of the conceptual issues here.

"It was too inflexible to allow sufficient policy to be done"

In other words, gold once limited the power of centralized states to seize the assets of citizens for their own purposes, like huge wars.
"This monograph presents a survey of the crucial link between state power and finance from the ancient era through to the present day. Cicero once said that the true sinew of war was endless streams of money."
press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/455/ Image
"Investment in accordance to productive capacity"

Indeed, you want to invest in projects with real cash flows. But you also don't want your money debased via inflation. So the measure of any investment is whether it can outperform simply holding BTC.
For years, retail and professional investors alike have benchmarked their returns in BTC terms. That's why coinmarketcap.com makes charts like this easy. You can see whether the no-op of simply holding BTC outcompetes an investment. Image
Additionally, you can quantify the daily fees paid, which can be plugged into a DCF model just like cash flows, even though these are chains rather than businesses.

This is a different sense in which BTC and other coins actually are "productive assets".
cryptofees.info Image
Technologies like mass production & mass media enabled the growth of centralized states till ~1950. The transistor, PC, internet, smartphone, and BTC are now *on balance* decentralizing that power...albeit not without an attempted Counter-Decentralization.
sotonye.substack.com/p/if-einstein-…

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Balaji Srinivasan Profile picture
Mar 12
India is a democracy, not an American colony.

Indeed the only way it can have *true* self-determination is if its citizens can vote, speak, and transact without being vetoed by US corporations.

Hence BTC, hence web3. Otherwise “Rob” will always have the whip hand over Ram.
The answer isn't the fake rules-based order that's really code for US domination.

Nor is it the might-makes-right hierarchy that China wants to impose.

It's about a neutral, verifiable, code-based order based on Bitcoin.

Fair to all, favoring none.
foreignpolicy.com/2021/12/11/bit…
Capitalism is for equals, equal partners in the deal.

The ~80% of the world that is neither American nor Chinese is more than willing to trade with anyone, collaborate on science, work in a positive-sum way.

But that’s about win/win, not who/whom.
Read 4 tweets
Balaji Srinivasan Profile picture
Mar 11
The Indo-Israel Independence Initiative

India & Israel should go hard into BTC/web3. Promote decentralized protocols that protect sovereignty, that make money, and that allow all to align behind neutral, globally fair rules.

The new non-aligned movement is economically aligned.
Why India & Israel?

- They have a critical mass of founders
- They already cooperate on counterterrorism & tech
- The combined diaspora has a presence all over the world
- Neither wants to fully rely on the US
- Neither wants to be beholden to China

All the pieces are there. ImageImageImage
I wrote about this at length last year, and I think these points still hold up today.

Crypto gives a third paradigm outside either US or Chinese control. It's thus suitable for every country that prefers sovereignty to becoming a colony.
balajis.com/tag/india/ Image
Read 6 tweets
Balaji Srinivasan Profile picture
Mar 10
The money of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not vanish from this earth.
Yoon's platform:

- make South Korea a friendly business environment
- attract crypto unicorns
- overhaul crypto regulations
- reduce crypto cap gains

Korean web3 founders, start your engines.
sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/conservat… Image
Now all we need is for South Korea to follow @nayibbukele's pioneering example, and make Bitcoin an official currency of the Korean state.

Light up another country on this map!
Read 5 tweets
Balaji Srinivasan Profile picture
Mar 6
How do libertarians ward off tyrants without a strong state?

The answer is Bitcoin. Because it is stronger than any state.

War is expensive. If an aspiring Tamerlane can’t seize the gold, they can’t fund the war machine.

A Bitcoin strike.
Noah’s article makes fair points, and in the 20th century I may have agreed with him.

How do you fight off the Nazis or Soviets without a strong state? You couldn’t.

But in the 19th century and the 21st, the need for gold and digital gold constrains states. Makes them all weak.
Why is Russia less able to build planes?

No money, no supply chains.

So, economic war is effective. Though I think *targeted* economic war is much better than the untargeted response we have seen thus far.
Read 5 tweets
Balaji Srinivasan Profile picture
Mar 6
Ukraine is not becoming a Russian client, Russia is becoming a Chinese client.
That’s what I thought might happen as soon as the financial nukes were dropped.

We may see China buy Russia for a song in the largest Belt and Road deal of all time, after the West dropped the price.
After the American invasion of Iraq, who won? Iran. They moved into the power vacuum.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, who wins? Perhaps China. They may move into the power vacuum. now.tufts.edu/articles/how-i…
Read 6 tweets
Balaji Srinivasan Profile picture
Mar 5
“Do this or I nuke you”

The problem of nuclear blackmail is not a trivial one. It occupied the thought of early Cold War theorists like Herman Kahn. And with more players, if one grows desperate, the dynamics could become unstable.
warontherocks.com/2017/02/blackm…
@NarangVipin has a new book out on an allied topic: how do states acquire nukes?

1) sprinters: get it fast, like China
2) hedgers: keep the option, like Japan
3) sheltered pursuit: use support of a patron, like North Korea
4) hiders: totally clandestine, like South Africa
The topics are related because in the event a desperate Putin decides to (say) nuke an iceberg to show he is serious, then a number of countries that were previously on the cusp of going nuclear may do so to deter him from trying something.

Just like Germany deciding to rearm.
Read 6 tweets

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