The war on cash and its effect on the Blockchain
14 March, 2017
As the world goes about its business, there is a war taking place around the globe. It's not the typical warfare one might expect, with tanks rolling and guns blazing. Instead, it's a quiet war that has managed to slip under the radar of most news outlets. It's a "war on cash".
In many ways, blockchain technology, the technology behind the bitcoin craze, has had a number of positive effects. This is particularly true in countries where stringent financial controls have held citizens practically prisoner for many years. Blockchain technology and bitcoin in general have opened up a world of opportunity.
Yet, at the same time, there are some rising concerns that appear to be attributed to blockchain technology. Among them is the "war on cash" that appears to be taking place around the world. Digitization is sweeping the planet, paving the path for governments to take total monetary control.
Obviously the governments already have monetary control, however it is not total. There's a lot of cash moving around to which governments have little or no control. It is that cash that they now want to abolish.
The war on large bills
Case in point: India recently launched a war on large bills (and cash in general). Last year, the country began an unprecedented social experiment based on enforced digital disruption. The move began in early November, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi demonetized 500- and 1,000-rupee banknotes.1
It was not the first time a government had taken such action. Singapore also recently withdrew a large currency, South Korea has announced plans to get rid of all coins over the course of the next few years, and the European Central Bank terminated the €500 banknote.
The difference in India is the potential for chaos the move elicited. With that one move, India essentially took out more than 85 percent of cash from the economy's circulation. India's economy is nearly 90 percent reliant on cash, making this an astounding and reckless move.
According to Prime Minister Modi, it was necessary to fight corruption and expose income that is illegally obtained or not declared for tax purposes. While that is certainly understandable in a country that has the third-largest economy in Asia, outlawing the vast majority of the currency in a country that is still relatively unfamiliar with digital currency still seems baffling.
Statistics published by Tufts University indicate that less than 10 percent of Indians have ever even used any type of payment other than cash2 and millions don't even have a bank account. To say that the move has been disruptive would be an understatement. Not only have banks been forced to work overtime simply to handle it, many Indians, so unaccustomed to non-cash transactions, have been unable to pay for the necessities.
The EU has also launched its own bar on large euro notes, stating, "Only terrorists and criminals use the €500 note." Widely circulated, the large denomination can be easily converted. After the note is phased out at the end of 2018, the €200 will be the next highest denomination,3 and that might get the chop soon.
Concern regarding the use of the large note by criminals is not without merit. Law enforcement in the United States has observed for many years that drug cartels have come to rely on the euro as the currency of choice. Despite such debate, it was not until the Paris terrorist attacks that the pressure to get rid of the note grew. According to a member of the central bank's executive board, the issue is one that simply cannot be ignored any longer. Even so, when it comes to criminal activity, where there is a will, there is usually a way. Eliminating large notes may not prove to be as effective as many would like to believe and many believe there's something more sinister going on.
Total digital currency
That has not stopped the advocacy for a total digital currency, however. Even more recently, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz suggested to the elites at the Davos Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that phasing out currency and making the move toward a digital economy could have benefits over the long term. He went on to say that countries like the U.S. not only could but should transition to a digital currency. While there are issues to be considered, including cybersecurity and privacy, such a move would have big advantages, including the ability to trace corruption.
However tracing corruption isn't what the governments are really after. It's just an excuse, like the war of drugs, the many false flag terrorist attacks, the WMD's, the fake Arab Spring uprisings in Libya and Syria, and so on.
With digital cash your government will be able to monitor, trace, and track all of your purchases, your spending habits, what you do and where you go, at all times, 24/7. People will lose total control over their own economic fates and hand it to the Davos globalist elites and banksters who will soon be demanding bail-ins.
A bail-in is rescuing a financial institution using taxpayers money by making its creditors and depositors take a loss on their holdings. So anyone with money in the bank loses control over their deposits as we have already witnessed in Cyprus and Greece. Of course the rich banksters and their friends get their money out the night before the morning of the government orchestrated heist.
Without a doubt, digital currency offers benefits, but there is serious concern that a cashless society will essentially equal total control over the population. Whether a total digital currency will ever occur remains to be seen, but it would certainly seem that many countries around the world are heading in that direction.
This Orwellian nightmare will soon be reality and it will be fully supported by the Millennial anti-free speech socialist snowflakes.
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1) Harvard Business Review. India's Botched War on Cash
https://hbr.org/2016/12/indias-botched-war-on-cash
2) Bloomberg. Where India's Cash War Went Wrong
https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-12-19/where-india-s-cash-war-went-wrong
3) NY Times. Europe to Remove 500-Euro Bill, the 'Bin Laden' Bank Note Criminals Love
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/05/business/international/ecb-to-remove-500-bill-the-bin-laden-bank-note-criminals.html?_r=3