Great article, Jared, I quite like this analogy. If we don’t learn from history we’re doomed to rhyme (to combine phrases).

Do you think it’s possible that the USD v BTC war plays out slightly differently — given that many US billionaires and millionaires are slowly but surely investing in Bitcoin? Almost certainly, they’re not interested in a new global reserve currency that undermines/invalidates the USD. But it’s a new basket to put some eggs in—if only to dodge a bit of local inflation. I’ve always felt that BTC only derives value from its convertibility into USD or EUR or CNY. It’s almost impossible to spend Bitcoin otherwise.

As the US Treasury learns from Bitcoin, I agree we’ll probably see a surveillance coin spin up. I think it’s going to be directly linked to the USD in circulation — every new transaction with cash will be added to the ledger as we phase out our paper money. Financial institutions have figured out more clever accounting tricks than this — it seems to me like the transition that offers the least interruption to the status quo.

In this case, USD-to-BTC might be a bit closer to the EUR-to-GBP (while G.B. was still in the E.U.) or the or the EUR-to-CHF relationship where it’s almost like one exists within the other.

I say this because there’s no real “enemy” for the USD to fight in a war against BTC. For the Athenians and Spartans, it was a bit more clear. If the US Treasury wanted to wage war against Bitcoin, it’d be waging war against its biggest financiers