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In the 19th century, China clung to silver while the rest of the world moved to gold. It wasn’t ideology — it was inertia. As silver lost value, imports became expensive, modernization stalled, and the empire’s currency quietly decayed. Britain, Germany, and Japan embraced gold, gained access to global credit, and industrialized. China stayed anchored to silver, trapped by a monetary system that no longer matched the world’s standard. Fast forward a century: China is now hoarding gold instead of Bitcoin. Gold once symbolized power; now it symbolizes delay. They’re securing a 20th-century asset while the world experiments with 21st-century money. History rhymes. In the 1800s people said, “Silver is safe, gold is speculation.” Today they say, “Gold is safe, Bitcoin is speculation.” Both sounded prudent — both missed the turning point. China’s silver century was a lesson in monetary conservatism disguised as stability. Its gold century might become the same. Bitcoin is the new base layer — the settlement network of the digital age. Miss it again, and history won’t forgive twice
User's avatar npub1guh5...6hjy
Many bitcoiners are butt hurt to see gold going parabolic. Zoom out, bitcoin has performed exceptionally well so far this decade and will continue to do so. Gold is having its day because governments are falling back to what they know as the dollar reserve system comes into question. China is setting up a parallel settlement network using gold and it's using gold because it's been reliable for millennia and, more importantly, has the liquidity profile to settle the size they need to settle if they're going to compete with treasuries. This does not change the fact that bitcoin is superior in every way to gold. It's a harder money that's more easily divisible, easier to send, easier to verify and easier to custody. Bitcoin still has many trillions of dollars of market cap to add before it can compete with gold from a liquidity perspective. I am more optimistic than ever that bitcoin will reach this point because more people are learning these facts every day and the infrastructure around the protocol is advancing at a faster pace than I've ever seen. Square's release this week is the latest example of this. 4,000,000 merchants across the United States are currently being forced to ask the question, "Should I accept and hold bitcoin?" How many do you think will take the plunge? Zoom out. image
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*In the 19th century, China clung to silver while the rest of the world moved to gold. It wasn’t ideology — it was inertia. As silver lost value, imports became expensive, modernization stalled, and the empire’s currency quietly decayed*
PoW@MaX's avatar PoW@MaX
In the 19th century, China clung to silver while the rest of the world moved to gold. It wasn’t ideology — it was inertia. As silver lost value, imports became expensive, modernization stalled, and the empire’s currency quietly decayed. Britain, Germany, and Japan embraced gold, gained access to global credit, and industrialized. China stayed anchored to silver, trapped by a monetary system that no longer matched the world’s standard. Fast forward a century: China is now hoarding gold instead of Bitcoin. Gold once symbolized power; now it symbolizes delay. They’re securing a 20th-century asset while the world experiments with 21st-century money. History rhymes. In the 1800s people said, “Silver is safe, gold is speculation.” Today they say, “Gold is safe, Bitcoin is speculation.” Both sounded prudent — both missed the turning point. China’s silver century was a lesson in monetary conservatism disguised as stability. Its gold century might become the same. Bitcoin is the new base layer — the settlement network of the digital age. Miss it again, and history won’t forgive twice View quoted note →
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