Тег: Cryptocurrencies

How to Deceive the State: The Art of “Multiplying Identities”

Today, let’s talk about a technique that is older than the internet, but in the digital age, it works better than ever. Let’s call it “personality multiplication,” which, of course, is not about schizophrenia, but about survival.
 
Why don’t the cops catch all the “small fry”? Any state, even the most crazed one, has finite resources. The FSB, the tax office, Roskomnadzor, inspectors—these are real people with salaries, KPIs, and lunch breaks. They physically cannot chase everyone who exchanged 50 bucks for crypto or wrote “the emperor has no clothes” on Telegram.
 
Therefore, the system has reaction thresholds. Crypto exchange without KYC—Rosfinmonitoring’s attention kicks in from 600,000 ₽ per operation. The tax office will stir when “undeclared” income starts smelling like millions. And for a single post with swear words about Putin from an anonymous account with 50 followers, no one will send a SWAT team—it’s economically inefficient.
 
However, the system accumulates dossiers. Cops often intentionally “overlook” the small stuff—they wait until you reach a critical mass, and then they come with a search warrant and present the aggregate volume. And the solution here is quite obvious: be an ant, not an elephant! Every action of yours should look like the action of a new, separate person. Episodes can only be combined into one case if a link between them is proven. And if there is no link, there is no case.
 
For example, you want to exchange 5 million rubles in crypto without KYC? Don’t do it in one operation from your phone linked to your passport. Break it into 9-10 transactions, and for each:  

  1. A new fictional “Full Name” and username for the P2P counterparty.
  2. A different VPN server.
  3. A separate email (Proton Mail, Tutanota, disposable emails registered via Tor).
  4. A different browser (Mullvad, Brave with cleaning, AdsPower, TOR Browser).
  5. Different anonymous SIMs on different disposable devices or different anonymous virtual numbers from different rental services (or at least different accounts).
  6. Different wallets, where money moved through a mixer or at least through a chain of exchanges BTC > XMR > BTC; this also applies to paying for the rental of an anonymous number and VPN in the previous steps.
  7. Different time patterns—not every Monday at 19:00.

 
To the system, this will look like 10 different people, each below the interest threshold. You can only be combined into one case if someone performs a manual analysis—and no one will do a manual analysis over 500 thousand rubles.
 
Or take another example—opposition activity. Writing texts? One virtual number, one VPN, one browser profile, one Telegram account. Want to post a video from a protest that strongly irritates the authorities or even one of drone “arrivals”? This is done by another of your personalities from a different IP and device (or at least a virtual machine).
 
The same goes for grey businesses. One sole proprietorship with a turnover of 50 million—a candidate for an audit. Five “friends-relatives” with a turnover of 8 million each—statistical noise (just don’t make them actually related—that is the very “link” by which they will merge you).
 
The main mistake beginners make is when one common element leaks the entire scheme. The same VPN provider linked to your card? One recovery email for 10 “different” accounts? All “different people” eventually merge into your one Sber card? Accidentally logged into an opposition account from home Wi-Fi without a VPN? Transferred crypto change from an anonymous wallet to your personal one linked to a KYC exchange? Logged into two different burner emails in one regular browser? Such scenarios have more than once become a sentence for personalities disliked by the authorities. From all this follows the main rule of survival under the tyranny of a stationary bandit: your anonymous “personalities” must never intersect!
 
Doubt that this actually works? It works, and how! Millions of people still quietly receive their salaries in USDT through dozens of small P2P deals. And the number of arrests for this is minimal, and they arrest specifically those who either chased hype or moved millions through a single wallet.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

How to safely cross the border for a person with “incorrect” views from the state’s point of view

The crossing of a state’s border with a repressive regime is not just about buying tickets and collecting the necessary things for life in a suitcase. For those who might have once spoken out against its policies, retained unfavorable materials, or, even more so, engaged in active opposition activities directed at a stationary gangster – it’s primarily a conversation about digital footprints. Phones, laptops, flash drives – all of this is a source of risk. Therefore, we should consider a number of practical recommendations that will help reduce vulnerability and maintain safety for ourselves and others.

The main rule is not to take anything superfluous across the border. Especially if there are data on devices related to any activism or criticism of authorities. Ideally – don’t take your primary phone and storage media with you where this information was stored. Even “remote” files can often be recovered, especially with the resources available to the FSB (or intelligence agencies of other countries). In serious risks, it is better to pre-transfer data to a protected cloud storage, and format and discard/sell the devices where they were stored. This is particularly important for people who were in an area of heightened attention or engaged in serious activism.

Before traveling, you should seriously prepare. Collect important contacts, documents, photos, backup password copies, crypto wallet files, and other critical data. Pack them into an encrypted archive (e.g., using 7-Zip) or create a file container (e.g., via VeraCrypt) for further upload to the cloud. Use a long and unique password that, at the same time, should differ from your cloud password by at least several characters. It is critically important to come up with a good association for this password so you don’t forget it even in a stressful situation.

After creating the archive, upload it to several independent cloud storage services. When doing this, use accounts that are not linked to your activism or your real identity. Also, be sure to download and verify that the archive opens, as you certainly don’t want to lose everything due to some unforeseen technical error. Make sure you accurately remember the passwords for the container and the clouds. Some people also prefer to use paid and more private services, such as Proton (of course, with a new account created specifically for this purpose). At the same time, it is safe to upload your data only to cloud storage in hostile jurisdictions for your government authorities. For citizens of Russia this is almost all of Europe and America, you can use Google Drive, although we recommend paid protected services like Proton Drive, Filen, Sync, MEGA, Internxt, NordLocker. Pay exclusively with cryptocurrency, preferably Monero (XMR) or Bitcoin via a mixer.

The ideal strategy is to cross the border with a “clean” device, on which there are no unnecessary apps installed, no sensitive correspondence, and accounts of social networks you want to hide have never been logged into. The device should also never have had SIM cards inserted that were used in undesirable activities (the security services can easily detect this simply by knowing the IMEI of the device, which will shine together with all the phone numbers used on it in operator databases). Of course, it is desirable to have some old activity on the device so that excessive cleanliness does not also arouse suspicion. However, even with such, you can say that the old device was simply stolen, lost or broken, and therefore had to be replaced.

Intelligence agencies have the resources to carefully analyze your devices and media, so digital hygiene is simply a necessity for survival. Preparatory work before crossing the border gives you control over the situation and peace of mind, which means a lower risk of suspicion from security forces. And this, of course, will ensure the safety of you and those with whom you have business dealings.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

A problem on the catallactic consequences of the intervention of luck spirits in cryptocurrency circulation

Question from Pseudonymous Chatterbox, accompanied by a donation of 0.0001 BTC

A thought occurred to me regarding a technical solution to the central bank problem under ancap.

In cryptocurrencies without a center, extreme volatility is noticeable.

It exists in the real world too—but central banks regulate it, trying to smooth out dips and spikes.

In a blockchain cryptocurrency, I can imagine the following as a replacement for a central bank, based on basic Bitcoin:

1) There are two types of value: main coins and “leprechaun” coins.

2) Leprechaun coins are born from transactions with main coins and are given to both parties. This rewards operations—making the asset more useful as a currency—and also (consequently) reduces volatility.

3) The lifespan of leprechaun coins is pseudo-random—the checksum of the next block determines which of them are destroyed and which continue to live. This is necessary for stability.

4) Owning leprechaun coins affects the chance that the owner will get the next block of main coins, or better yet, new emission is split: half to the miner, half distributed proportionally (but with pseudo-random sparsity for a game element and visibility—for example, 15/16 leprechaun coins give nothing, 1/16 give a 16x result) among leprechaun coin holders at the moment. This is necessary so that leprechaun coins have value.

This point is debatable; it means that such a mechanism cannot be grafted onto Bitcoin already, a new cryptocurrency is needed. But without linking the value to the main asset, no cushioning of spikes will be possible.

5) This system must work quickly. Likely, a single blockchain, like in Bitcoin, is not very suitable for this, but a partitioned blockchain might work, which merges into a general one at certain intervals so that main coins of different partitions do not have different values (this is a real danger).

6) This is essentially just a regulator—any operation becomes less speculative; the speculative effect is smeared out.

What do you think of this nonsense, author?

Answer from Ancap-chan

I’ll say right away: the effect of implementing this nonsense will be strange. How would it look? Every transaction has a cost depending on the mempool congestion. Every transaction generates leprechaun money for the sender and the receiver. Leprechaun money generates base protocol money with a certain probability. Accordingly, as long as the expected reward in base coins exceeds the cost of paying transaction fees, people will run bots that infinitely transfer coins between their own wallets. Since the fee does not depend on the transaction amount, but the reward does, it will be profitable to juggle larger sums for “leprechauning.” So we will simply get an additional way of staking base coins, which will differ from classic staking by a number of unpleasant side effects: the use of leprechauning will drive up transaction fee costs, thereby worsening the user experience for ordinary users.

How will leprechauning affect volatility? The volatility of the market price of a coin depends on the change in supply and demand for it. Suppose demand for the coin increases. The price rises. Leprechauning becomes profitable with a smaller number of coins. More people start engaging in leprechauning. The mempool overflows. Fees rise. The profitability of leprechauning decreases. Demand for coins decreases. The price falls. That is, the feedback loop seems to work, and the coin price becomes less volatile, but this is achieved at the expense of the inconvenience of using the coin for anything other than leprechauning, and we are supposedly designing money.

I can provide another example of low-volatility money—according to David Friedman, adjusted for modern technology. Anyone wishing can freeze the necessary number of tokenized warehouse receipts for goods from a standard basket in a smart contract, which is selected so that its components hedge each other during price fluctuations due to external conditions. In exchange for the frozen tokens, the smart contract mints coins; let’s call them, say, “deives,” so that Satoshi isn’t lonely. At any moment, the owner of such a coin can turn to the smart contract and break it down into its components, receiving commodity tokens in return, and then sell them individually or exchange them for the actual goods. Or not break the coin and buy goods with it.

Money guarded by leprechauns would reduce the volatility of its value by increasing the transaction price; deives, however, would mean costs for their owner for the very fact of ownership, because if there are receipts for physical goods, someone bears the costs of storing these goods, and these costs will be factored into the price of the receipts. If deives are backed by futures, the coins will have a limited circulation period, after which the coin will be frozen until the owner extends the delivery date of the goods under the future. Again, the further from the physical warehouse a coin circulates, the larger the discount at which it will be accepted for payment, because its backing loses value by the amount of the cost of transporting the goods to the place of demand. Nevertheless, such tokens backed by commodity baskets could certainly be in circulation, especially around local trading hubs with significant warehouse areas.

So, we have at least two decentralized mechanisms for reducing volatility by increasing the costs of storing or circulating coins. There is in principle no such thing as free stability; one can only choose which costs are preferable. Or you can simply buy Bitcoins and accept that their price will fluctuate within fairly wide limits, hoping that the upward trend they previously demonstrated will continue in the future.

The Rule of Hostile Jurisdictions

In a world where various states are divided into antagonistic blocks, there is one interesting possibility for ensuring personal security for agorists, dissidents, and others who hold any positions or engage in any activities that their own stationary bandits do not approve of and may threaten with punishment. It can be called the “rule of hostile jurisdictions.”

The essence of this idea is simple: if you are physically located in the territory of a state belonging to one block, you should use services, host websites, seek clients, store and exchange money, register companies, and employ intermediaries from states belonging to a different block. For example, if you live in Russia, you can use a VPN from Sweden or the USA, an email client in Switzerland, a crypto-card in Lithuania, a shell company in Estonia, and not worry about your security. And if you live in Europe, it will be many times safer for you to use “police-monitored” VK and Mail.ru than Facebook and Gmail.

Many services provide users’ personal information upon request from government authorities of a friendly block. This is inevitable, meaning you need to adapt to the realities of geopolitics. In reality, you only need to be afraid if the service provides information specifically to your own stationary bandit. At the same time, a resident of the RF does not care what some service reveals about them to security forces from the USA. Just as a resident of the USA does not care what security forces from the RF learn about them. As long as it does not involve committing large-scale acts of terrorism resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people—which no sane person would do anyway—it is unlikely that any risk of cooperation between jurisdictions from hostile blocks will arise.

Various fraudsters have long been aware of this. For instance, in the past, Russian hackers intentionally avoided users from Russia and targeted Americans or Britons, which made it very easy to evade punishment. Now, Ukrainian scammers do the same, calling Russians with proposals to transfer money to some “safe account” and then forcing them to perform various “tasks” allegedly to get the money back, since they know no one can do anything to them. Of course, we are absolutely against such fraud, but these cases show that the rule of hostile jurisdictions works.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

How the state’s imposition of AML/KYC encourages fraud

One of the requirements from the state is the identification of individuals participating in financial transactions and the sources of their funds. KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering, consisting of transaction history analysis) procedures are explicitly stated in the laws of many countries. Usually, when someone wants to exchange cryptocurrency through a “white” exchanger or exchange platform, their transaction is checked by AML tools and, if it is assessed as high-risk, the client is required to undergo KYC—provide their passport details and information about the source of funds. All this is justified as a fight against various crimes, fraud, and even terrorism. However, as we will now see, such procedures can, on the contrary, encourage fraudulent activity.

One of the fraudulent schemes directly linked to AML/KYC is revealed by the creator of the cryptocurrency exchange monitor antiswap.info. When someone wants to perform a crypto exchange, exchangers conduct an AML check of the transaction via third-party services. But the methods used by such services raise doubts. For example, you yourself may not be involved in criminal activity in any way, but if the coins you currently hold were involved in it a dozen transactions ago, they will already be considered “dirty,” and you will have to deanonymize yourself and somehow prove the legality of the origin of the funds.

One of the users of the kurs.expert monitor points to cases where people were simply withdrawing funds from closing exchanges, and these were flagged by AML verification services as stolen. The essence of AML checks was also well described by one of the commenters on the miningclub.info forum: “I sold a bicycle to Vasya and bought a car from Masha. A year later, it turned out that Vasya was dealing drugs and making drops while riding the bike he bought from me with drug dealers’ money. It turns out I am an accomplice and Masha is the owner of ‘dirty’ money. Consequently, will her account be blocked, as well as the cash register of the store where she bought sausage yesterday?”. Furthermore, many commenters there point out that AML verification services may assign a transaction risk without any basis at all, since no one checks how they conduct this procedure.

Naturally, if you fail the AML check and the exchanger does not like your arguments during KYC (or if you simply do not wish to deanonymize yourself), your funds may simply be stolen, or you may be charged a huge commission for their return. As the creator of Antiswap writes, a third of the exchangers listed on the popular Bestchange monitor were caught doing this. But why then do almost all exchangers there have a perfect rating? The reason is that Bestchange considers the seizure of coins due to failure to pass AML/KYC to be solely the client’s fault, and all complaints regarding this are moved from negative reviews to neutral ones, which do not affect the exchangers’ rating.

At the same time, you are unlikely to go to state authorities to complain about such exchangers, as they will likely also have questions regarding the origin of your funds, and thus you may only create new problems for yourself and recover nothing. Thus, exchangers with dishonest owners and employees can practically legally engage in theft and fraud.

The website antiswap.info contains a list of such fraudulent exchangers, as well as a list of those who can be trusted. Of course, among the trusted exchangers, very few openly state their readiness to conduct exchanges without forcing the user to undergo AML/KYC, because many are still afraid of repression from the stationary bandit and publicly report their compliance with its requirements, even if they actually perform no checks. This creates difficulties in finding exchangers that are truly ready to conduct anonymous transactions. However, it is still important to separate blatantly fraudulent exchangers from those who can be trusted with high probability.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

The future belongs to ideas incomprehensible to the stationary bandit

Voluntarist, Bitarch

When a person adheres to certain views regarding the social order, desires specific social changes, and especially engages in practical activities aimed at their popularization and implementation, they may encounter certain risks and threats. I think it is unnecessary to remind you that oppositional views are very often persecuted by the established political power. Even in fairly liberal and democratic societies of the Western world, human rights and freedoms are still limited, and views that do not align with the government agenda are suppressed. And what can be said about non-liberal and non-democratic societies? In them, one can receive severe punishment, or even lose one’s life, simply for expressing an opinion that does not coincide with the “official” point of view.

Activity that questions the established social system is obviously dangerous and risky. But does this problem apply to absolutely all such activity? Let’s look at a few striking examples that allowed it to be successfully avoided.

One such example is the emergence and spread of the internet. This led to previously unseen informational freedom, the effective uniting of people sharing the same interests, and the free organization of various activities, including those aimed at achieving social changes. A very important role in the formation of a free internet specifically was played by the fact that stationary bandits (states) simply underestimated its potential. Many conservative “experts” in the past were extremely skeptical of the internet and believed that it would not have a significant impact on social and economic life.

Imagine what would have happened if governments had understood the potential of the internet from the start. They would surely not have allowed such freedom, introducing many laws regulating its operation long before its wide distribution. Perhaps the creation of any internet resources would have been subject to direct regulation and licensing by government agencies. Also, internet providers would have been required from the beginning to technically design the network’s operation in a way that prevented the emergence and functioning of resources not approved by the government.

Of course, nothing of the sort happened. Governments seriously began to regulate the internet only when access to it was already in the hands of almost every person, countless resources had been created within it, and it had become an integral part of economic activity. They and their “experts” turned out to be fools, unable to understand a fundamentally new informational tool.

A similar story happened with cryptocurrencies. States explicitly forbid using anything as a medium of exchange and payment other than the money they themselves issue. But initially, cryptocurrencies were barely perceived as money by anyone; they were treated as a toy, a diversion for a small number of “geeks.” And only when they acquired huge scales did governments undertake their regulation. Most likely, if governments had realized the potential of cryptocurrencies from the start, they would have simply introduced laws banning any such means. Now, it is too late to introduce a complete and abrupt ban.

One can conclude that it is safest to participate in the promotion and implementation of those ideas aimed at achieving social changes which no governments will initially take seriously. And such activity has the best chance of actually changing the world, since governments, due to their own lack of understanding and lack of interest, will not ban it or punish the people associated with it.

Perhaps those who are still engaged in activity that is quite clear and absolutely comprehensible to stationary bandits should switch to other ideas that are underestimated by them despite their enormous potential? For example, such an idea could be the complete eradication of violence as a tool for achieving any goals and as a method of interaction between people, which is what is promoted on this channel.

Learning to understand decentralized systems

Voluntarist, Bitarch

One of the mistakes often made regarding the concepts of certain systems is the inability to understand their decentralized nature. I will give an example of an absurd, yet still frequently encountered question about cryptocurrencies: what happens if the “owner” of Bitcoin decides to create as many new coins as they want or otherwise change its system? Here, there is a clear inability to understand how a currency can not have an owner. The traditional understanding of currency always assumes the existence of a specific issuer who releases new monetary units and possesses the exclusive right to do so. And many truly cannot imagine how it could be otherwise.

The example of Bitcoin is telling, as it is already a functioning system without a centralized governing body. In its case, there is no issuer; no one can unilaterally make any decisions regarding the operation of its system without the direct consent of holders of more than 50% of the computing power involved in it. Each such holder (miner) possesses their own copy of a network node, and each such copy is identical. This is precisely what decentralization consists of—there is no central node. Once launched by its creator, such a system, upon involving a sufficient amount of computing power, never again passes into unilateral control.

Even greater decentralization is given to the entire cryptocurrency system by the fact that anyone who wishes can attempt to launch a new cryptocurrency with their own operating principles. There is no such rule (nor the possibility of implementing one) that only one specific cryptocurrency exists and is used on the internet (as is most often the case with ordinary currencies within the territories of states). There can be as many as people themselves decide to use for various purposes.

If a currency can be decentralized, then why can other systems not be as well, for example, a system of public governance? Its traditional understanding is that in a certain territory there must exist one single body (the state) possessing the “legitimate” right to impose a single order on everyone, if necessary resorting to the threat of violence. But do you think it would not be just as much of a mistake to consider this option the only one possible, as it is a mistake to consider the existence of currencies possible only in the presence of specific issuers?

It would be a great folly to dismiss the possibility of achieving a free, non-violent society in which different, freely choosable systems of public order exist in parallel, simply due to a fundamental unwillingness to understand and accept the possibility of the existence of decentralized systems in principle. Those who still continue to think in a purely “centralized” way, where every system must have some single center of control, should finally learn to understand the possibility of the decentralization of various systems.

Paper money as a cause of people’s impoverishment

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Do you know why in the United States after 1971 labor productivity continued to grow at a constant rate, but at the same time real incomes of people abruptly stopped following the growth of productivity and remained virtually unchanged? Or why after 1971, over 50 years, the consumer price index soared 7-fold (what cost 1 dollar in 1971 now costs 7 dollars), although before 1971 it took almost 200 years for an approximately similar price increase? Or perhaps why the share of US residents living with their parents until age 29 gradually decreased until 1971, but began to grow again after? Or why the cost of housing relative to workers’ incomes in the US has only increased several times during this period?

The answer is extremely simple – on August 15, 1971, US President Richard Nixon finally liquidated the gold exchange standard, canceling the fixed conversion of the US dollar into gold. After this, the US dollar turned into paper that was effectively backed by nothing. It was after this decision that the impoverishment of Americans, who had previously only grown wealthier, began.

This rather simple fact clearly confirms the absolute failure of paper money as a means of exchanging goods between people and accumulating wealth. The use of paper money is merely a reliable way to become poor. After all, what else can be expected from money that can be printed in unlimited quantities, thereby devaluing people’s savings, while enriching officials, government structures, subsidized oligarchs, and banks, who received the new money supply first and realized it at the old prices. Or what else can be expected if money is distributed boundlessly at an artificially low interest rate for the development of businesses that would be absolutely unprofitable and failing at a rate formed under free market conditions. Indeed, the theory of the Austrian School of Economics does not call unlimited money emission and credit expansion the main causes of economic crises for nothing.

People will only grow poorer until we abandon government paper currencies in favor of money that is not controlled by any centralized governing bodies and has a strictly limited issuance of new coins. Precious metals demonstrated their reliability as a means of exchange and wealth accumulation in the past. But in today’s digital world, where information technologies play a key role in all types of activity and relationships, cryptocurrencies can serve as a reliable means of exchange.

The Importance of Cryptocurrencies in Providing Humanitarian Aid

Voluntarist, Bitarch

When a serious crisis occurs in a society and people lose not only their rights, freedoms, and accumulated wealth, but are literally deprived of the means of existence, concerned representatives of other societies try in every way to help them. Organizing the provision of humanitarian aid is a difficult task, especially in crisis conditions. But cryptocurrencies can come to the rescue, as they make it possible to provide this aid in the most accessible way.

We are talking about Afghanistan—a country where power was seized by the Taliban terrorist group. The country’s economy has practically come to a standstill, and people have lost access to their deposits and savings. The terrorist regime was subjected to significant sanctions from the West, and although the US President exempted humanitarian aid from sanctions, banks are blocking transactions directed to Afghanistan, and the international payment system SWIFT has simply stopped working within Afghanistan. This has made it practically impossible to provide humanitarian aid to the residents of Afghanistan using classic financial instruments.

Cryptocurrencies came to the rescue, proving to be practically the only way to send funds to the residents of Afghanistan. For example, Fereshteh Forough, an Afghan-American who founded a programming school for women in the Afghan city of Herat, turned it into an improvised crypto-bank. This allowed money to be transferred to the institution’s students, which they can exchange locally for afghanis (the currency of Afghanistan) to buy food and medicine. And Sanzhar Kakar, an Afghan who grew up in Seattle, created the HesabPay mobile electronic wallet for the residents of Afghanistan back in 2019, which also works with cryptocurrencies. As he claims, 88% of families in Afghanistan have at least one smartphone, allowing them to trade, transfer money to each other, and receive transactions from abroad without ever touching banks or the Taliban regime. And this could help save millions of Afghans facing the risk of starving to death. It is also reported that the opportunities provided by cryptocurrencies are being actively studied by international charitable organizations.

Now it should be perfectly clear how cryptocurrencies are capable of saving millions of needy people from certain death. Sometimes cryptocurrencies are accused of being merely a financial pyramid operating for the enrichment of a limited circle of wealthy individuals, and therefore they must be banned for the benefit of ordinary people. Of course, such claims are incorrect, and banning cryptocurrencies is simply impossible, except by completely shutting down the internet. It can be concluded that a person who advocates for the well-being of people and the provision of aid to those in need, but is at the same time an opponent of cryptocurrencies, is completely inconsistent in their reasoning. Cryptocurrencies are a benefit for ordinary people, and especially for those who have fallen into an unenviable position.

The sunset of fiat money and the rise of cryptocurrencies

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Record inflation in the US has once again shown that one cannot rely on currencies with unlimited emission and centralized management, such as modern government (fiat) money. For a long time, the US dollar was considered a fairly stable currency, and many chose it specifically as a means of accumulating wealth. Now, all dollar savings are merely awaiting devaluation. The reason for this is the inadequate economic decisions of the US government during the coronavirus pandemic; it decided to combat the arising difficulties by increasing the money supply. And no government in the world can guarantee that it will not make decisions leading to the devaluation of money and the impoverishment of people. Rather, the opposite should be expected—inflation is beneficial to governments, enriching those whose hands the new money supply reaches first (for example, the government itself and state banks), since they can spend these funds at pre-inflation prices. Thus, there is no such fiat currency in which your funds would be safe.

Cryptocurrencies demonstrate a different picture—of course, not all of them, but certainly those that are truly decentralized and crypto-resistant. The emission of such currencies is limited by the mathematics of large numbers, and centralized management is absent—any changes in the network’s operation (and even the implementation of updates by developers) are possible only with the direct consent of the holders of the majority of the computing power involved in it. Together with the absence of any restrictions on the exchange of funds (funds can be sent to any person in a matter of minutes, even one located in a distant country on the other side of the Earth), this makes cryptocurrencies a valuable asset in the eyes of an increasing number of people—the well-known Bitcoin, for instance, recently broke another record in its value.

Sooner or later, the governments of all states whose currencies are considered guarantors of savings stability will, mistakenly or even intentionally, make decisions leading to an uncontrolled increase in the money supply, meaning the devaluation of money and the impoverishment of people. And each time, cryptocurrencies whose emission remains at the initially set level will only become more popular as a means of accumulating wealth, or even as a means of exchange. The decline of fiat money is inevitable when such a good alternative exists!