{"id":47279,"date":"2019-07-17T18:43:14","date_gmt":"2019-07-17T23:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=47279"},"modified":"2019-07-27T08:27:09","modified_gmt":"2019-07-27T13:27:09","slug":"the-dollar-not-crypto-is-a-national-security-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=47279","title":{"rendered":"The Dollar, Not Crypto, Is a National Security Issue"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Dollar, Not Crypto, Is a National Security Issue<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin piled on to comments made recently by President Donald Trump<\/a> by calling cryptocurrencies a \u201cnational security issue<\/a>.\u201d Bitcoin and crypto proponents more broadly have long wondered if (and how<\/a>) the government of the United States would recognize the slow but steady encroachment of decentralized assets, and it appears to have begun. Facebook\u2019s announcement of the Libra project on June 18, 2019, will likely prove the point on countless future historical timelines at which the U.S. government began<\/a> a slow, ultimately ineffective<\/a>assault upon the cryptocurrency realm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything that Mnuchin attributed to Bitcoin \u2014 for one thing, that it has been used in concert with such \u201cillicit activity [as] cyber crime, tax evasion, extortion \u2026 illicit drugs, and human trafficking” \u2014 can be said, and to degrees an order of magnitude or more larger, about the U.S. dollar. It\u2019s an argument suitable for children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of this is extremely bullish for Bitcoin and the entire cryptocurrency complex. A bipartisan political salvo against crypto assets will undoubtedly accelerate the pace of innovation as well as increasing the value proposition, and ultimately the market price, of assets that ensure privacy. Higher prices will draw more crypto developers into the market and direct more resources at capturing market share, which means \u2014 as in any market \u2014 that consumers are the ultimate beneficiaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mnuchin isn\u2019t wrong, though. There is a tremendous risk to American national security where currencies are considered: the dollar. Those who habitually cite its reserve-currency status as a reason not to worry are making an argument that stands on increasingly precarious foundations: since 2010, the U.N. and other groups have cited the dollar\u2019s downward slide in value, urging the adoption of an alternate<\/a> system of reserves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Dollar, Not Crypto, Is a National Security Issue U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin piled on to comments made recently by President Donald Trump by calling cryptocurrencies a \u201cnational security issue.\u201d Bitcoin and crypto proponents more broadly have long wondered if (and how) the government of the United States would recognize the slow but steady encroachment of decentralized assets, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[23346,23347,15315,23345,15208,839,11332],"class_list":["post-47279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-aier","tag-american-institute-for-economic-research","tag-cryptocurrencies","tag-peter-c-earle","tag-steve-mnuchin","tag-us-dollar","tag-us-national-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47279"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47452,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47279\/revisions\/47452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}