The US/EU Bifurcation and Emerging Currencies - CBDCs and Bitcoin
#bitcoin #CBDCs #EU
Some fascinating geopolitical and economic dynamics are going on right now which have been flying mostly under the radar as other issues such as the various wars - Ukraine etc, have been dominating much of the mainstream media space.
It’s to do with emerging currencies and how they could be used by governments.
Both the UK and EU have talked about CBDCs in recent years or ‘central bank digital currencies’. The public however has been sceptical as much has been said about how these could be used to put restrictions on how citizens spend their money as well as the surveillance capabilities that these ‘programmable’ currencies would have.
Look to China’s ‘WeChat’ for an example of how state power can be coupled with new techology to surveil citizens and gain unparalleled control over their lives.
The main issue for me however is how central banks already debase our money through their unlimited ability to create more currency as they see fit. This causes the inflation that we see, in other words the dilution of the money already in circulation and a lessening of its purchasing power.
A CBDC will not solve this fundamental issue but it could give the European elites more control over the lives of their citizens which might in fact be the goal.
The US however seems to be taking a different approach.
Trump talked about not allowing a CBDC and in the last couple of weeks has signed an executive order authorising a ‘Strategic Bitcoin Reserve’ or SBR as well as a ‘Crypto Asset Stockpile’.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbirnbaum/2025/03/12/strategic-bitcoin-reserve-will-the-us-government-buy-bitcoin/
Bitcoin is a very different animal. A crypto currency already in use all over the world with a decentralised network backing it rather than a central authority.
But crucially bitcoin cannot be created out of nothing, it’s value cannot be debased and it has a finite supply of 21 million coins. It is also permissionless, difficult to control, ban or confiscate. The Chinese government tried in 2021 to no avail - the infamous ‘mining ban’.
Historically bitcoin has been hated by bankers, governments and elites and has largely represented the ethos of freedom, decentralisation and sovereignty. And a separation of money and state.
The economist Friedrich Hayek speaking in the 1980s said this “I don’t believe we shall ever have good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government….all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they cannot stop.” Bitcoin has thus far proved unstoppable despite attacks.
Interestingly the new US administration is taking a radically different approach with Bitcoin from the last administration under Joe Biden which was particularly restrictive towards crypto assets.
Senator Cynthia Lummis has spoken about enshrining a Bitcoin Reserve into law. And most recently there has been talk about ‘BitBonds’ - Bitcoin backed bonds - and using the price appreciation of Bitcoin over time to reduce the US’s gargantuan $36 Trillion debt.
“Refinancing the U.S. debt with ‘BitBonds’ would drop annual interest payments from $1.2T to $340B, saving $850B per year—while simultaneously building a national strategic bitcoin reserve” according to Joe Burnett of Unchained Capital.
However the EU and European Central Bank appear to have other ideas. They are doubling down on a CBDC which they want operational by October this year.
They are also fearful of the path the US is taking and how that could affect the value of the euro.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/eu-worries-us-embrace-crypto-assets-could-impact-europe-financial-stability-2025-03-10/
Forbes frames the issue as the ECB wanting to pry Europeans away from Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
Why would the EU not want their citizens using Bitcoin?
The paragraphs below are from the Forbes article.
‘How are Bitcoin, stablecoins and central bank digital currencies like the Digital Euro different?’
“A big part of the ECB's drive towards the Digital Euro is to compete and pry Europeans away from Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and "stablecoins" such as the one that Facebook/Libra proposed. What is the difference then between these three?
Central bank digital currencies are a direct liability of the central bank. Since the central bank has the power to issue currency, this means (for example, in China) that the central bank can essentially create "digital euros" if it wishes to. The architecture and data within a central bank digital currency are usually built completely by the central bank supported by private vendors of its choice. In China, the central bank has turned away from a distributed ledger technology to a centralized data store, in which the technical details are pretty scant. Hence, the central bank controls everything, and the system has no external access. It seems likely that the Digital Euro will go down that same path.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2025/03/07/a-2025-overview-of-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-digital-euro/
The US media is beginning to talk about Bitcoin in more positive terms.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danrunkevicius/2025/03/10/wall-street-is-quietly-hinting-at-major-ideological-shift-toward-bitcoin-this-year/
It’s important to say that the Trump administration has cabinet members who own Bitcoin. Both Trump and Robert Kennedy Junior spoke at Bitcoin conferences last year and Trump also promised that if elected he would free Ross Ulbricht - the inventor of the anonymous and infamous website ‘The Silk Road’. He was good for his word and Ross was given an unconditional pardon and freed on day one of Trump taking office.
All this suggests a complete ideological divergence between the US and Europe. It’s not even clear if European politicians know what Bitcoin is let alone have any comprehension of its potential value to society as a scarce digital asset and store of value that cannot be controlled or debased by a central bank.
It seems that Europe’s refusal to consider the US approach and determination to impose something that might hurt their own populations could back fire as the European economy looks to be on shaky ground and there is growing discontent across the continent.
And the march to war - the plan to spend an estimated 800 billion euros building up Europes military capability is likely not the answer and will further impoverish the European public. The money will need to be either extracted from EU member states and their citizens or printed fresh by the European Central Bank - causing inflation that will also impoverish citizens.
EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has implied that they could use the ‘unused’ private savings of EU citizens to fund their endeavours - strategic investments into the European military industrial complex and ‘ReArm’ Europe initiative. It appears unclear if citizens will be given any choice in how their savings are used .
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In the UK there has even been talk of conscription as well as diverting money from welfare to raise funds for the Ukraine Russia conflict.
Many Britons feel no allegiance to Keir Starmer and may not cooperate. For example British politician and broadcaster George Galloway has been very vocal saying that there is no way that his 17 year old son is going to war whatever the government says.
If the European elites continue down this path they might find before the decade is out that their relevance on the world stage has diminished. The other big geopolitical players are making moves to bolster their economies - in the US case with strategies that don’t take directly from citizens.
The EU may need to change direction soon or risk becoming much weaker economically and irrelevant politically.
