Pro-Bitcoin candidate Javier Milei. Pro-Bitcoin president elect Javier Milei. Those sentences have been repeated all over by several outlets, content creators, or social media accounts focused on the Bitcoin space, all encouraging that Argentina’s new president will enact policies that favor the growth of the ecosystem in what has for long been one of the leading nations in terms of adoption in the region. But why?

On July 26, 2016, Milei made his first appearance on the Argentine late night show Animales Sueltos, hosted by his now friend, journalist and TV presenter Alejandro Fantino. There, Milei’s appearance, combined with his shaggy hair, outspoken behavior, and most importantly, his championing of libertarian ideas, quickly gained a foothold before his presence became commonplace in national media. Shortly after, Milei’s rants also started going viral on the internet.

Milei’s had spent years writing and speaking about Austrian economics, but it was television laid the ground for his meteoric rise in politics. Milei’s increasing popularity also coincided with Bitcoin itself gaining more traction in Argentina and Latin America as a whole. For many bitcoiners in the region, it is likely that their journey down the rabbit hole, and thus their exposure to the failures of our monetary system, came partly to the tune of Milei’s voice.

It wasn’t shocking then to see Milei refer to Bitcoin’s potential as early as 2017, with most of his statements exalting the technology’s ability to take back money away from the central banks. Regardless of that, in 2019 Milei confessed he was yet to study Bitcoin in depth. Despite calling Bitcoin an “impeccable concept” in 2021, other interviews from last year suggest the president of Argentina is still in the midst of fully understanding it.

Given that Milei’s takes on money, central banking, taxation, the role of government, and so many other facets of economics and politics already align perfectly with the Bitcoin ethos, it’s no surprise the community took a liking to his antics as he edged closer to the world stage.

In many ways, Milei’s Bitcoin journey seems very relatable, it’s still incomplete. However, unlike most people, his rise to the presidency means that he is now tasked with a much more complex mission: rescuing Argentina from a hyperinflationary spiral.

The Argentina Problem

In the week before Argentina’s elections took place, year-to-year inflation reached 142.7% as the economy continues to suffer the consequences of the policies Milei has denounced for years. It is precisely this what has driven Argentines’ desire for change and, ultimately, propelled Milei to secure his victory on November 19. On that very night, Milei said his goal is not only to solve today’s problems, but to put Argentina back on track to become the global power it was destined to be at the start of the 20th century.

Since the election, Milei has coined the phrase “No hay plata” (There’s no money) to describe the current fiscal deficit Argentina finds itself in. Along with ratifying their commitment to shut down the central bank, axing public spending has been one of the key points the new Milei administration has insisted the most on. Not doing so would inevitably cause hyperinflation, according to Milei.

Besides this, Argentina and Milei will also have to juggle its massive debt to the IMF, amounting to over $31 billion at the time of writing. While Milei has vowed that Argentina will pay back its debt, many have pointed to the institution’s warning to El Salvador as one of the reasons why Argentina won’t be embracing Bitcoin anytime soon.

Speculation on that derives from a non-binding letter of intent sent to the IMF by former Minister of Economy Martin Guzmán in March 2022, outlining that the country would “discourage the use of crypto-currencies” by enforcing harsher anti-money laundering controls. Although banks are strictly forbidden from dealing with anything crypto, this has hardly deterred their use, especially that of USDt, whose ease of use and access has made it one of the go-to options to escape the dwindling Argentine Peso.

Milei’s other standout policy, dollarization, seems at odds with hyperbitcoinization, yet it is most certainly a necessary step to start fixing Argentina’s economy. At LABITCONF, incoming chancellor Diana Mondino said that beyond dollarization, Milei’s government is keen to do away with forced legal tender and instead let people choose their own currency. If numbers are anything to go by, many Argentineans already prefer the USDt “criptodólares” as they’re called by locals.

During his campaign, and as he gets ready to take office, Milei has said that the effects of the previous government’s policies and spending are likely to be felt anywhere between 18-24 months into his term. For others, such unpopular statements would have cost them hundreds of thousands of votes; for Milei, it’s an extension of the very principles (low time preference) he campaigned on, many of which are what got the Bitcoin community to look his way in the first place.

What the Bitcoiners Are Saying

Milei’s “chainsaw plan” will take time, and luckily many bitcoiners understand that if Argentina is to push harder for Bitcoin adoption that will also happen gradually. JAN3 CEO Samson Mow has consistently said that “Milei’s priority should be to stabilize inflation, moving towards dollarization and ultimately shutting down the Central Bank,” only then will the government be able to factor in what Bitcoin can do for the country.

In spite of that, Argentine bitcoiners generally seem more excited about the wider prospects of Milei’s win. For Manu Ferrari, Milei’s commitment to freedom “is more than enough for the following years,” a feeling that has been echoed by most people familiar with the intricacies of Argentina’s dysfunctional economy.

When El Salvador passed its Bitcoin Law, the Central American nation set the first precedent for what nation-state adoption could look like. Nevertheless, limiting the scope of Bitcoin adoption to just that is near-sighted at best. If free circulation of competing currencies is the Milei administration’s goal, it bears saying that policy can already be beneficial for Bitcoin after years of enforced currency controls.

A more comprehensive nation-state strategy, one that removes capital gains taxes, looks into Bitcoin mining, or even considers the sale of Bitcoin-backed securities, will only be viable if Milei manages to course-correct Argentina’s economy. In the meantime, the sole promise of freedom should translate into recent anti-crypto measures fading away as the nation embraces more free market policies.

The new government’s primary objective now is to stop the bleeding, which is accomplished by implementing several shock measures, all destined to solve the “No hay plata” problem. At the moment, the Milei administration still has to get a hold of inflation, plan out its dollarization process, and lay out its plan to close the central bank. Quite an ordeal for Latin America’s first libertarian president in a country where Mauricio Macri stands as the only president outside the leftist Peronism ideology to ever finish his term.

Bitcoin’s rise to become a genuine asset class mostly took place under a laissez-faire environment as regulation still struggles to keep up with its developments. At the very least, this is what people can expect from a Milei government that has promised to cut down on the numerous taxes that plague Argentina’s day-to-day economy.

With conversations dating back to last year, the JAN3 team hopes to approach Milei and his allies on the topic of Bitcoin in 2024. By then, the world should have a clearer view of what his vision of Argentina looks like after initial deployment of the chainsaw.

Until that time comes, bitcoiners can rest assured that this freedom-loving politician who sees Bitcoin as the second coming of private money has all the tools needed to fully grasp its meaning and, eventually, ensure Argentina adopts it for the long-term good of the country.

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This is an opinion editorial by David Waugh, business development and communications specialist at bitcoin investing platform Coinbits, and Dave Birnbaum, the product director at Coinbits.

Every generation has bones to pick with those who came before. However, Generation Z, those born between the late 1990s and early 2010s, have an especially valid complaint: Previous generations have stolen their future.

Also called “the Zoomers,” this group was forced by lockdowns and school closures to socialize through webcams during their formative years. These 68 million Americans have had their lives disrupted by social upheaval, wealth destruction and cultural decline, all during the prime of their youth.

Many Zoomers do not yet realize the scale of the crime perpetrated against them. Some are waking up. Either way, all of them will soon need to chip in to pay the piper for decades of monetary and fiscal mismanagement by prior generations.

But the situation is not hopeless. There is a tool that Generation Z can use to achieve restitution. Instead of embarking on a dismal project to rebuild our ruined financial system, only to reinstate the rents and inequities that existed before, Zoomers can leave their mark upon history by using bitcoin to build a new system that is resilient, equitable and just.

Like the Greatest Generation, which rebuilt America on strong foundations after facing down the greatest threat to humanity that had ever manifested, Generation Z can channel their well-earned sense of betrayal and loss to create a world order worthy of being passed down to their own children and grandchildren.

Backed Into A Corner

Sometimes called “the loneliest generation,” Gen Z has been sold out by their elders, who have declined to make the necessary sacrifices to allow future generations to prosper. The psychological warfare waged against Zoomers is sometimes subtle, but often, it is not. In schools, mass media and online, they are assailed with doom about climate, race and exploitation, and told that their future has been stolen by evil people who selfishly refuse to fix those problems.

In fact, this is a half truth. The Zoomers’ future has indeed been stolen, but not by polluters and racists. Instead, globalist elites, smart enough to see their system failing but not courageous enough to take responsibility for it, have looted the financial and cultural capital left to us by the Greatest Generation.

As part of the coverup for this crime, Zoomers have endured a constant onslaught of depressing propaganda. They are told the world will end in 10 years. “Climate anxiety” is widespread among a generation that is instructed to feel guilty for their existence rather than called to create new things and solve problems. Previous generations shot for the moon. Today’s elites disparage space exploration out of concern that rockets might affect the weather.

All of this has yielded predictable results. Zoomers experience high rates of suicide, depression, anxiety and many feel that life is meaningless.

Politicians are not likely to offer a solution. Appealing to the voting base of Generation Z is a shameful game of gaslighting, virtue signaling and self-righteous power grabs. Political leaders deny reality, and claim that they can engineer prosperity using central planning. Government schools and universities generally fail to deliver a quality humanist education, depriving an entire generation of the necessary intellectual tools to notice this deception.

Growing Awareness Of The Problem

And yet, many members of Generation Z are coming to important realizations as they work their way through the rubble of the university system and join the workforce. We recently caught up with Jack Nicastro, a current Dartmouth College student, who believes he can see through politically motivated pessimism:

“Mainstream culture is hopelessly (and insupportably) pessimistic, particularly apropos technology,” Nicastro said. “Politicians capitalize on the populace’s anxieties about technology, automation and AI with their usual demagoguery to advance illiberal policy agenda, as evidenced by the TikTok hearings.”

Sid Gundapaneni, a student at Binghamton University, offered a similar perspective, stating he is, “optimistic in a broad sense” regarding living standards, though less certain about the future of freedom:

“From a liberty standpoint, I’m unable to maintain such confidence — and I believe there are long-term consequences for this,” he said. “But right now, governments and their subsidized industries show no fatigue in their massive growth.”

Coming To Terms With The Challenge

The fiscal and monetary crises facing Gen Z are significant. The national debt is over $31 trillion, and unfunded liabilities exceed $187 trillion. Thanks to a politicized and incompetent Federal Reserve, the American economy is headed toward stagflation, a nasty phenomenon where inflation and unemployment intensify at the same time.

Leaders from major political parties claim Social Security and Medicare reforms are off the table. Brian Riedl, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, recently stated that both programs “will drive $116 trillion in budget deficits over the next 30 years, according to CBO (Congressional Budget Office) data.”

Some Zoomers recognize the need for reform. In a Wall Street Journal article featuring student commentary on Social Security, Mark Panjaitan, an undergraduate at the University of Texas at Austin, stated, “Instead of placing retirement dreams in the hands of a deadlocked Congress, I advise everyone to depend on the fruits of their own labor.”

Another, Ryan Callahan of the University of Virginia, claimed, “Regardless of the changes Congress makes, Social Security will be a ghost of its former self by the time my generation can collect.”

With the political process unable to address basic needs for change, let alone ambitious projects that require sacrifice for the sake of future generations, voting and activism cannot solve this problem alone. On our current trajectory, the amount of economic growth that would be needed to pay off our debt is almost mathematically impossible — barring a technology breakthrough that rearranges the chess board.

A Generation Primed For Bitcoin

A defining characteristic of Zoomers that makes them worthy of their name is that they move incredibly fast. Gen Z was brought up on a media diet of frenetic stimulation. Its members are quick to learn new technologies and good at using them to create novel content, apps and social experiences.

As McKinsey researchers noted, “Members of Gen Z… are true digital natives: from earliest youth, they have been exposed to the internet, to social networks, and to mobile systems.”

This fast-paced, technology-centric way of life primes the Zoomers for Bitcoin. While previous generations might balk at Bitcoin’s unfamiliarity, Zoomers are more comfortable with Bitcoin than they are with traditional banks and financial products. They are well positioned to build out the necessary infrastructure to bring Bitcoin to billions of people — and change the calculus confronting the problems of their time.

The Journey Home

Although Bitcoin offers hope for Zoomers, they must steel themselves for what is to come — a difficult journey to return to a balanced and free society. Preparing will require independent study, to make up for the miseducation prevalent in government schools and higher education. They will need to organize their own communities using encrypted communication networks in the face of censorship, intimidation and surveillance. They must permeate existing institutions, such as the legal and financial fields, public service and corporate leadership, with the means to impose tough reforms.

In addition, they will need to understand that Bitcoin provides a key part of these means. Bitcoin is leverage in a world where Gen Z has very little. They’ll need to reject the false promise of “crypto,” and relearn the ancient art of long-term thinking.

Every generation deals with crises, but some generations are called to especially tough challenges. The Greatest Generation went to war to protect humanity from totalitarian regimes. The Zoomers now must face the repercussions of decades of monetary and fiscal irresponsibility, and the downstream destruction it has wrought on their freedoms and their culture.

They did not ask for it, but for a generation of young people who struggle to believe that their lives have meaning, the calling to rebuild with Bitcoin is perhaps the greatest blessing they could have received. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.

This is a guest post by David Waugh and Dave Birnbaum. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

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This is an opinion editorial by Dan Weintraub, an author and high school teacher who first became interested in Bitcoin while teaching economics.

Recently, I’ve been thinking a good deal about Balaji Srinivasan’s $1 million dollar bet that bitcoin would reach $1 million in June (which he recently conceded), his apparent hyperbole with regard to imminent U.S. dollar hyperinflation and his musings about digital lockdowns. It all sounds a bit far-fetched to me.

On this score, he reminds me of Peter Schiff, a man who for decades has told us the sky is falling and that the world will end as fiat currencies all collapse; a man who claims intellectual superiority over the “fools” at the Federal Reserve (meanwhile and generally speaking, the global economy hums along and collapse appears, at least for the time being, to be the stuff of dystopian clickbait on YouTube).

I, for one, try to eschew conspiracy thinking because it feels neurologically indulgent to me. In simpler words, those who peddle in conspiracy theories do so because it gets them, and their followers, off. “Meltdown masturbation,” if you will. (By way of example, the wild-eyed belief that the U.S. government used the COVID-19 lockdowns as a trial run for further repression reeks of paranoia and a desperate quest for making some kind of dopamine-producing meaning out of a rather bleak moment in time. Crazy town, really; but good fodder for the production of adrenaline-inducing catastrophe porn.)

Yes, I am skeptical of prognostications of impending doom. But that said, there is an underbelly to such thinking that reveals a far more troubling dynamic; a dynamic that, driven by the exponential age in which it exists, is fast on the rise. And this dynamic will be far more destructive, far more catastrophic, than the supposed collapse of fiat or that the coming of a global banking crisis could ever be.

We are entering an age in which all trust is dying, and with the end of trust comes the end of… everything. Sure, I may think that Srinivasan and all of the other gloom-and-doom, the-end-is-nigh purveyors have, in some manner and to some degree, lost their grips, but there is something quite revealing not simply in the power of their musings, but in the reality that it reveals, in the attention and excitement it attracts.

You see, no one trusts anything or anyone anymore. And that utterly terrifies me.

The Death Of Trust

The list of institutions that we increasingly mistrust is, well, endless. And the depth and breadth of such distrust grows daily.

I’m not so sure that I need to provide the reader with an in-depth analysis of our collective loss of trust in everything. And so, in the interest of brevity, here is the abridged version:

Track the numbers and you will see that trust in government is at all-time lows and continues to crash. Whether it’s because our leaders actually are dishonest, self-serving, greedy, power-hungry, incipient lobbyist-ghouls, or whether it’s because that’s how they are portrayed in the media, government officials and institutions are roundly and profoundly distrusted.

An ever-diminishing minority trusts law enforcement, perhaps because such a minority either has relatives who serve on the police force or because their own power is buoyed by the machinations of the policing and legal systems. For the most part, Americans seem to view police officers as former high-school misfits who magically discovered expressions of sweet revenge in being able to bully the rest of us. Add to this the widespread corruption that permeates every nook and cranny of law enforcement and of our justice system (cough, the Supreme Court, cough), and it’s no wonder that “f*** the police” is a popular cultural refrain.

Interestingly, fewer and fewer people trust the so-called mainstream media; so few, in fact, that there actually isn’t a mainstream media anymore. Pretty much all media has become an expression of ideological vitriol, a theatrical dance aimed at capturing a larger market share of the neurologically dispossessed; a cynical beast birthed and nurtured to line the coffers of the men and women who captain these galactic founts of misinformation.

Few trust our public school systems anymore. What was once viewed as a virtuous institution, an endeavor of the highest good, public education has been summarily devoured by every possible ideologically-propelled interest group; the vomit that has followed has painted a picture of public education as rife with lazy teachers teaching knucklehead kids.

I could go on. From corrupt corporations and their corrupt CEOs to the self-serving, self-righteous and self-aggrandizing leaders of organized labor; from duplicitous, woke and censorship-informed activists touting the need for correct pronoun adherence to the reactionary and manipulative religious leaders looking to return the nation to the wonderful patriarchies of the 1950s, trust is vanishing into the very ether in which these individuals stoke their fires and solidify their self-concentered narratives.

But wait! It gets better. For now, superimposed over this already bleak landscape, say hello to ChatGPT, to deep fake technology, to central bank digital currencies; bid an open-hearted welcome to trust’s final frontier, a world in which discerning truth from falsehood becomes virtually impossible.

What a dumpster of a world. What is to be done?

Enter, Bitcoin.

Bitcoin And Verification Of Truth

I have written several papers (I like to call them books because it makes me feel smart, and I have even published them on Amazon) about Bitcoin, extolling the virtues of this quite-extraordinary technology. In all of those pieces I have asked, nay begged, that we have some imagination when considering our Bitcoin future. I will go even further here: Bitcoin is our only hope in an increasingly trustless world, for within the Bitcoin protocol lies the answer to all of the conundrums posed by a trustless world:

The ultimate answer is verification of truth. Hear me out.

To begin with, when I suggest that we have some imagination, I am actually not asking for all that much. The boxes in which we live, the lenses through which we view reality, have evolved time and time again. It wasn’t all that long ago that we believed that the Earth was the center of the universe, that humans would never fly, that computers were the providence of NASA. Things have changed, and they have changed quickly. The public internet was born around 30 years ago, give or take. Now look at us. It is almost too hard to imagine what the next 10 years will bring.

So, why Bitcoin? Why is this relatively-straightforward technology (ingenious and elegant, complex and nuanced… but straightforward nonetheless) the answer to the impending doom we all face if we are unable to prime and restart our national and international trust engine?

It’s simple. Because Bitcoin is the truth. On a most basic level, the Bitcoin protocol — and the tens of thousands of nodes that run the software — verifies each and every transaction that takes place on chain. No one is in control. No one’s word needs to be taken as fact. The truth is manifest and auditable on the blockchain itself. Countless, entirely-objective nodes make falsification of the record an impossibility. Bitcoin is thus an inviolable, immutable, incontrovertible truth.

Have some imagination!

What if, just what if, the Bitcoin network, in time, becomes the base layer of this thing we call the internet? What if all data that passes through this network is verified and scoured for falsehood by the soon-to-be billions of verifying nodes; nodes that become native to the devices that we employ for all of our communication and social/virtual interactions? And what if more and more people, in an effort to believe, abandon the cynical and exploitative and fetid digital world that has evolved to date, and instead join a network of unassailable truth?

You see, the promise of Bitcoin is not that it serves as sound money in an unsound monetary universe; the promise is not that it births a banking system that is devoid of scammy, fraudulent middlemen; no, the promise is far, far more profound.

The promise of Bitcoin is that it slowly devours the very beast that gave birth to its need.

Trust is a human imperative, a social imperative. Without trust, chaos ensues. In a world in which belief in things must always be questioned, mental health suffers, governments fail and anarchy rises; lawlessness and violence become the norm rather than the exception. In a trustless world, isolation and hoarding are seen as virtues rather than maladaptations. In a trustless world, everything falls apart, institutions crumble, warlords and demagogues emerge on an ever-rising tide of uncertainty and fear.

We are moving toward such a future, toward such a world. Bitcoin is our only hope. In Bitcoin there exists the possibility that trust can slowly be reestablished, not based upon the words and deeds of men, but instead on a universal digital protocol that sifts through the mire and always, without prejudice, arrives at the truth.

We must have the imagination to believe in this possibility. This is what makes Bitcoin a beacon of hope, a ray of light permeating the haze of a creeping fog of surrender.

I HODL bitcoin, thus. I preach the gospel of Bitcoin because I dare to hope, for my great grandkids, in a world community governed by truth, verified by benevolent objectivity; a world in which trust forms the very core of our existence.

So to Srinivasan and Schiff and all of the other catastrophians I say: Perhaps you are right. But the truth remains: The only way out of this existential death spiral is through a rebirth of trust, and only Bitcoin, realized to its highest and most majestic potential, can provide this.

Just imagine.

This is a guest post by Dan Weintraub. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

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Bitcoin (BTC) spent another day tackling $25,000 on Feb. 20 as analysts continued to warn over market manipulation.

Bitcoin buoyed by “Notorious B.I.D.”

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD making up losses from around the weekly close to approach the $25,000 mark again at the time of writing.

Bulls remained unable to spark a resistance-support flip, however, and whale activity on exchanges kept suspicions high.

In its latest update, monitoring resource Material Indicators revealed that large-volume traders were artificially “thinning” resistance overhead, making it more likely that BTC/USD would move higher.

Co-founder Keith Alan referenced a wall of bid liquidity buoying spot price, something he called the “Notorious B.I.D.”

“Multiple rejections from $25k correlates perfectly with BTC macro TA which is a valid reason to TP at these levels, but Notorious B.I.D. is still trying to push price up,” a tweet stated.

“Based on the history, and the potential to rip through upside illiquidity, I’m still scalping longs.”

Material Indicators added that “From a TA perspective this should be a local top, but Notorious B.I.D. is still running the binance order book.”

“They are distributing BTC ask liquidity out of the $25k – $25.5k range into the active trading zone so resistance is thinning,” part of comments additionally read.

A potential plan among such traders could be to spark a large price run, causing retail investors to pile in or go long, then get stuck as whales distribute BTC to the market at higher levels.

China could boost “liquidity junkie” crypto

With United States markets closed for a holiday, meanwhile, one analyst turned to longer-term implications of moves from China.

Related: A ‘snap back’ to $20K? 5 things to know in Bitcoin this week

In addition to potentially allowing Hong Kong retail investors access to previously-banned crypto, the Chinese central bank injected a record $92 billion of liquidity into the economy on Feb. 17.

“While most analysts are focused on how the Fed tightening will reprice risk assets this cycle, they’re failing to consider the scale of easing in the east,” popular Twitter account Tedtalksmacro argued in a thread.

It explained that unlike in the U.S., where the Fed is withdrawing liquidity via quantitative tightening (QT), China is doing the opposite. In 2020 under the Fed’s COVID-19 quantitative easing (QE), risk assets including crypto saw an eighteen-month bull run.

“Crypto is not tied to any particular economy or entity, but rather is a liquidity junkie – it longs for the risk-hungry investor to get cash and bet on the fastest horse. That’s set to be exactly what will happen this year in China,” the thread continued.

As Cointelegraph reported, U.S. already liquidity forms a major talking point when it comes to cryptoasset performance, with Arthur Hayes, former CEO of derivatives giant BitMEX, predicting downside continuing in the second half of 2023.

“Of course, not all of the cash injected by the PBoC will end up in risk assets. But I’d bet that a decent portion of it will!” Tedtalksmacro nonetheless concluded.

“Just like we saw from the West in 2020, heightened liquidity from central banks = prices of risk assets (like BTC) go up.”

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors’ alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.