For bitcoin idealists, the coming utopia for global finance stars bitcoin dismantling the fiat hegemony, empowering citizens to own their money without central bank mediation, and facilitating borderless trade. Credited to Satoshi Nakamoto Institute co-founder Daniel Krawisz, hyperbitcoinization is a term which describes bitcoin coming to dominate the global currency basket through mass adoption.
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Fiat Currencies in Race to the Bottom
Should hyperbitcoinization occur, it will almost certainly be fast-tracked by bad policies. While some countries are clearing the turf for cryptocurrency through soft touch regulation, others are unwittingly doing the same by failing to contain inflation and maintain liquidity, culminating in a breaking point where citizens will be forced to take back their financial freedom through alternative currencies, primarily bitcoin.
In Zimbabwe, Venezuela and Sudan, fiat currencies are in a race to the bottom, prompting governments to implement dubious policies to stop the rot. But the invocation of special powers by presidents, price controls and surrogate currencies also compete with sanctions, bad governance and other structural factors that render government fiscal control efforts futile and deny citizens control of their money.
The humanitarian failures of fiat money can be seen in Venezuelan families being forced to buy rotten meat for consumption and give up their children for adoption in the face of a shortage of basic commodities. Such tragic cases impress an urgent case for an alternative currency that is not vulnerable to the whims of central banks. In Zimbabwe, government policies have robbed citizens of their savings twice in two decades as the national currency has dramatically shed value.
Repression Opens up New Possibilities for Bitcoin
Historically, economically failing and increasingly isolated governments resort to obsessive control of
