I just finished reading Teeka Tiwari’s recently published book about cryptocurrency and the imminent revolution governing banking and commerce. We live in exciting times!
The book begins with a brief history of money as a concept, and then more specifically the U.S. dollar and how it became the world’s reserve currency. I thought I knew the history of money pretty well, and was humbled to find there was yet more to learn from Tiwari’s summary of events.
He discusses the abandonment of the gold standard, the creation of the Federal Reserve, and commencement of World War I, all occurring at roughly the same time. Following the war, the “Bretton Woods System” was agreed upon by 44 nations, establishing the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
“As the world’s sole reserve currency, the dollar replaced gold as the medium for international trade settlement. This meant that all international goods would be bought and sold in U.S. dollars… no matter which nations were doing the buying and selling…. The Bretton Woods System bestowed an enormous privilege upon the United States because it created a global demand for dollars. All nations needed to hold U.S. dollars to facilitate foreign trade. This dynamic made trade deficits irrelevant for the United States. Under the gold standard, trade deficits required the U.S. to send gold to another country. Under Bretton Woods, trade deficits required the U.S. to send its dollars to another country. And the U.S. could just print new dollars to ship out if it needed to…” pg. 7 - 8
He goes on to reveal the events surrounding the birth of the Petrodollar. After two decades of the U.S. spending money created out of thin air, other countries began to question the value of the dollar, and the Bretton Woods System began to crumble. The U.S. was in jeopardy of losing its position as the world’s reserve currency. In steps Henry Kissinger, under the Nixon administration.
“Along with his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Nixon struck a deal with the Saudi Royal Family. The Saudi’s agreed to price all international oil sales exclusively in U.S. dollars. They would refuse settlement in all other currencies. In return, the U.S. would provide military protection and military-grade weapons. This deal effectively kept the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency, even with the breakdown of the Bretton Woods System. By 1975, all OPEC nations followed suit and agreed to settle oil trades exclusively in dollars. These were the largest oil producers in the world, and they only accepted dollars. Which meant all other countries still needed to obtain dollars to purchase oil.” p. 9
It is now easy to see why the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar has steadily declined since that time. Quite disturbing indeed. I feel bad for all those people with cash under their mattress, thinking that they are saving their money. When in fact, the value of those dollars is literally evaporating.
With this history of money in mind, the reader is now prepped to grapple with the concept of cryptocurrency. Tracking the birth of Bitcoin, Tiwari explains concepts like ‘blockchain’ and ‘mining’. This transitions into a captivating exploration of the full implications of the blockchain technology in the near future. Blockchains facilitate commerce and peer-to-peer transactions on a global scale. This has the potential to impact our economy at every level, allowing the creation of entirely new industries and business models, while rendering others completely obsolete. The full implications are mind-boggling, and well worth reading.
The next section is a detailed How To Buy Crypto guide with instructive photos that walk you through the exact steps to take in order to purchase crypto currency for the very first time! Toward covers several different exchanges/wallets and discusses their differences in detail.
There’s a FAQ section that I found to be superfluous, mostly restating what was already said in the text. I suppose this section was included for people that are too impatient to read the book and want an immediate answer.
The book is concluded on a visionary prediction…
“What lies before us is an economic boom beyond anything we have ever experienced. Blockchain technology is going to drive every aspect of our civilization. It is going to eliminate bureaucracy, middle-men, and cronyism. This will put trillions of dollars back into the economy for productive use. And the blockchain is going to liberate trillions of dollars in ‘dead capital’ …except it won’t be denominated in dollars. It will be denominated in cryptocurrency. These trillions of dollars will be in the hands of real people to do with what they will… And ‘jobs’ as we know them will be a thing of the past.” p. 187 - 188
Sounds good to me! The faster we get off the U.S. dollar the better, I say. Are you invested in crypto yet?
If you haven’t created an account with Coinbase yet, consider following this link, and get you’re first crypto!
If you’re already using Coinbase but want to trade other cryptos besides the top 4, consider opening an account with Binance here.
Hope this review was useful. Please upvote and follow me for more original articles like this!
-Eric Summers If you’re reading this, you are the Resistance ~