This post was initially authored on 4/16 DURING THE TRANSITION BETWEEN END OF Q2-START OF Q3 OF THIS YEAR 7-8 months ago; i just want to say; I didn't proofread cause I got carried away writing. So forgive any grammatical errors. Although I'm sure there aren't many. I would be remiss to mention; you need to click read the original post: then read this one, if you're "TLDR" under 250 character crypto 'tard; than this is not for you. If you have a 6 second attention span; then skip to the next one. This is not for you.
DO NOT upvote this if you haven't read the entire thing. I don't want your upvote / curation unless you believe I deserve it. It's that simple: If you're an academic interested in cryptocurrencies, blockchain, geopolitical climate (both current/future) and how they intertwine: then keep reading. Make it to the end; you win a cookie! But in all seriousness I've outdone myself on this blog. LITERALLY predicted the creation of #Bakkt/#Nexx & didn't even remember I had until I just read it over now; so without any further adieu: here's the old link so you can see the dates/compare.
I've tagged this under introduce-yourself for 2 simple reasons: 1) it's my first real post, as it basically took me several hours to build off the one I wrote almost 8 months ago 2) I think that this is as a new user on a new account something that is a MUST READ and anybody who thinks otherwise; read it first & if you still feel that way when you're done I'm certain you won't then I'll buy you a cookie. =D
https://steemit.com/life/@a1mtarabichi/india-in-the-21st-century-or-a-game-changer-for-crypto
India is making serious progress, and great strides to declare themselves as a serious player in the turbulent, uncertain future that lies ahead of us: the 21st century. *(assuming SpaceX doesn't make the Terminator & wipe us out by then)* **imperative/serious/rapid** progress in such a **short time span.**
I am convinced that there are two major players which are currently being modernized and will most definitely play a key role ushering us deeper into 21st century....those players being:
1. China
Look Familiar? If so then props to you. +2 Brownie Points! Pat yourself on the back for having an education; knowledge is power and in this day & age we are reduced to calligraphy with our emojis its almost as if we are regressing rather than progressing as American civilization goes we're #34 in education as opposed to #1 post WW2 but I digress. Another post for another time. The orange part is what's known today (if you've ever bothered to watch a documentary, crack a history book; or even open wikipedia; as the Ancient Silk Road (not to be confused with the dark (defunct) web site!!
The Ancient Silk Road was the primarily trade route established during the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan; perhaps the largest empire in the history of mankind; the Silk Road was instrumental in establishing trade routes from many different regions/cultures through a collection of ports & cities spanning from the Horn of Africa; modern day Egypt/Libya, to the Sea of Japan all of which was under the umbrella of the Mongolian Empire; whose warlord Genghis Khan is perhaps the most ruthless & renown military leader known in history.
Genghis helped establish the Mongolian Empire which reigned as the major & largest empire/superpower on Earth to date; from roughly 144 B.C. to 1440 A.D. 1700 years; almost 550 longer than the Romans & an entire continent bigger than the Persians which his son & grandson then expanded to its apex circa 1000 A.D. to its fall in 1440 A.D.
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Once again; I digress... this post is about India; particularly it's growth & development *in the short-term* and how its pertinent & perhaps imperative to the growth and/or existence of #crypto's place in the world, paving the way for the next 82 years.
One thing I had to note before I shelve China for now; that nagging question that you must've been wondering ever since I brought up the line for the orange / Ancient Silk Road.
Political affiliation aside; how you feel about the CCP is irrelevant; this is just facts & I am using these facts alongside history to determine what the future will look like; or atleast to capture an idea:
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XI Jinping has done something that frankly; was/is ARGUABLY the most ingenious political strategem & chess-playing of Central Asia's geopolitics by establishing a second trade route: known as the Martime Silk Road XI has effectively escalated China as a MAJOR PLAYER moving forward:
...leading in tech/greenhouse energy, and for the first time since 1945; GDP/economic growth. Now the reason I mention "future/outlook" & carefully chose the word "Geopolitical Chess" is because unlike his ancestors; as well as pretty much every single empire to date up until the atomic/nuclear age as we all know well the Manhattan Project changed everything. XI wanted China to re-establish itself as a dominant world power but couldn't do it forcefully; infact that option had been tossed out the window indefinitely as Robert Oppenheimer's end-all weapon was, to say the least, WAY AHEAD OF ITS TIME! Analysts pegged the creation of atomic energy based on the first discovery of nuclear fission in 1933; by a physicist in Nazi Germany as something created perhaps 100 years too soon. Again, another post, another time; as this is something that needs / warrants its own discussion:
XI DADA "uncle XI" as he's nicknamed across the streets of Beijing; for his winnie-the-pooh like appearance; realized that he could NEVER defeat the U.S. in a direct military conflict...not in this post-coldwar era. So he began his chess match & started the groundwork; laying the foundation for what would be the Maritime Silk Road; set to be completed sometime between 2028-2036. So the reason why I used these key words to describe his game-plan for the maritime silk road: "chess" "cleverly" "long-game" is because he knew that a military option, albeit the most rapid & fruitful/best way to get it done... would result in NATO leveling Beijing almost as quickly as he built those man-made islands to evidently (slowly/systematically) overtake SouthEast Asia.
Xi Jinping, the cold-blooded yet calculated authoritarian & patriot he is (the most dangerous combination in a leader; as we've seen time & time again in history)... is the strong-men politics; the dictators, with a deep seeded love of their nation & embodied by patriotism that are the most threatening to global stability/world peace. You don't have to worry about the corrupt leader; even the genocidal leader (please do not take out of context, we're talking about peace here versus total war) now some of you may be naive/too uneducated to realize that there is no such thing. Well duh. But before you interrupt/dismiss me with "we've never had world peace" take a second to consider that in the first half of the 20th century we've had TWO world wars; both of which the outcome was very much uncertain, for all of mankind. Since 1945; the establishment of the U.N. & I think perhaps the collapse of USSR in 1991, we've had a blissful era. Despite the turmoil & onslaught, the genocide going on in my native country, Syria & the Arab Spring; Ukraine, as well as rampant genocide in Uganda, Eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan, the Middle East: from the coast of the Mediterranean to the border of Iran; which is in itself engaged in its own Arab Cold war (again another post, another time) I really don't think we have stopped to appreciate or recognize/realize how great things are for us...particularly those in the western developed world.
This is how the P.C. culture was born; through "trust falls" and "gender-neutral bathrooms" it's essentially a joke... men are no longer men & women are becoming men. Why? Because we've been so bored / distracted & ENTITLED, our bellies full, our lives enriched, economy booming; yet still we complain. Always complaining. Talk to your grandparents (if they're dead like mine; then talk to those who knew them) and then complain. Or better yet travel to a 3rd world country in a remote village/town, not a major city. Did you know that 1/3rd of the world's population primarily in China/India have access to NO running water and NO electricity? So next time you bitch about your 9-5; next time you cry that your boss is a dick, next time you demand better seats because you're a "yelper" go fuck yourself and remember, you don't like it go to DPRK, Somalia, Damascus, try your luck there.
To quote Churchill; perhaps the greatest wartime hero & leader of the 20th century; who ruled the conservative party & helped steer Britain out of the bowels of the Nazi War machine and maintain the monarch's reputation, dignity, and survival; "Any man who is not a liberal by age 20 has no heart... any man who is not a conservative by age 30 has no brain" and it is this despicable culture we're living in that has made me a fiscal conservative. Growing up and seeing my peers literally scream at their parents for not buying them the car they wanted while I was working 16 hour shifts at wendy's at age 16 to help my single mother pay her paycheck... I'm not bitching now, unless you consider me telling anyone who's entitled to STOP WHINING! the fact remains... this is a competitive world. This softening & infantalizing of the American worker through its culture is what's made us fall in education, its what made Russia/China stronger nations & push the boundaries; like children they always go a bit too far to see how far you'd let them go... again I Digress. Back to Xi DADA!
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Now uncle Xi was no fool. So what did he do to get this maritime silk road; if those territories are not annexed by the CCP therefore not under Chinese control; how can he have what is essentially the MOST DANGEROUS thing a nation can have to threaten the stability of world peace? A trade route spanning from the Mediterranean; going full-circle through All of Russia & ending in the sea of Japan; then picking up again at China's southern border & resuming full-circle, effectively claiming each and every port in every nation you see there; from the Eastern coast of China/Sea of Japan, to Thailand, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, cutting straight through the Arabian sea/Indian Ocean straight through to the Middle East & forking downards to control central African ports as well.
It was a rhetorical question... but I'll answer anyway: unlike Genghis's originally slow & ineffective silk road; especially back before the steam engine, it would take up to 8 months to complete the trail.
With modern technology, & through a series of alliances/systematic chess moves where Xi has effectively raised the national deficit on every nation I've listed above & more; then forced them to depend on Chinese labor for cheap resources or starve. Then when it came time to pay the tab; they simply couldn't much like the U.S. with China today but unlike the U.S. which has a military that could decimate China's 10 times over; even today... these were struggling nations; some developed, most of them third-world, and just grateful to have food/supplies.
So when Xi DadA came knocking; you can bet your ass they bowed to his demands. TO their surprise his demands were... not so bad yet they were too foolish to realize his grand plan which was: a shipping port here; access to a patch of land here, a trade route here, effectively all of the shipping ports was his first aim: locking them down he then moves on to complete the circle *(its important to understand what China's doing here; they are completely reliant on U.S. agriculture, particularly wheat, flower, soybeans, etc. otherwise their population would starve.
This is why our "trade wars" are hurting them much more than they're hurting us. Now with both the original & maritime silk road; he can effectively create a series of trade agreements where he is one by one, building up his economy/infrastructure/agriculture/military/energy/every single component necessary for a thriving nation to survive.... all the while
running up our national deficit by buying our debt, so when the time comes to "pay up" we will have no choice but to give them their money.
This isn't a problem now. Because if China were to demand the money owed their investors which effectively own 77% of our national debt between the CCP & private Chinese oligarchs; which are intertwined when you're dealing with communism... we would simply respond "or what?" knowing that they couldn't do shit to make us pay. Infact, we've been comfortably letting them buy off our debt for the sole reason that they depended/depend on our agriculture; if war with China were to break out today... they would starve in less than a month discounting any conventional/nuclear weaponry so this is where the phrase "SOFT POWER" comes in. Xi's party has been, as you may or may not have noticed, making China's presence more known. Chinese movies are more abundant. China's middle class is growing each year while the U.S.'s dissipates each year. If this continuation / pattern / trend does not stop; what will happen is this:
-1. The original silk road *particularly land in Mid East/mostly Pakistan/India, through mainland China itself to the coast will provide all agriculture needs.
-2. The maritime silk road will serve a dual purpose: providing not only valuable military ports for quick access, but by creating a trade route circling all of Asia, Southern Russia, Eastern/Northern Africa, & the Middle East; he not only had the navy ports necessary for his modernized military to mobilize & force the U.S. back across the Pacific/Atlantic... but
3. He also has shipping ports; again this is quintessential for obtaining oil from the MIDEAST/Africa, Agriculture from pretty much everywhere, & as technology continues to progress; that full circle can be closed in a day. In about 12 years; probably 12 hours... so my guesstimate would be by 2030; China would not only be self-sufficient; but their GDP would outweigh ours significantly & they would be self-reliant so when they finally ask to pay up and we say no for the ten millionth time; they will have a contingency in place. This goes back to Xi's patriotism. He's set out a plan so comprehensive that it will take longer than his lifetime to execute. He knows this... which is why I am delving into the psychological insight/analysis of Xi's motive. Why else play the long game? If he was impatient/selfish he'd annex some land & expedite this process. But as long as our deficit rises; they can continue to bolster their military & violate norms, commit intellectual property theft, and assert themselves as the Global Leading superpower in the 21st century... and while we would've stopped them (had this been Mao's time) we can't do shit now as we owe them. They own enough of our treasury bonds to bankrupt our economy; but again until they are self-reliant & self-sufficient, they won't take that chance. Hence the term Soft Power.
Through a combination of trade routes, economic growth, & alliances/propaganda, China's CCP will be the leading nation of the 21st century. I am a die-hard American Patriot; but let's face it... no empire lasts forever. China's Soft Power is their counter-strategy to America's NATO; which was cleverly drummed up by FDR, is there anything that president hasn't done to save us? that we haven't fucked up royally with each passing term? means that despite the fact we don't want to see it & keep ignoring it; just google "U.S. National Debt" and you'll see as long as that number keeps rising; China keeps growing.
We used to lecture them on human rights. Now we cater to their whims; let them get away with shit that we would otherwise punish other nations for. i.e. Russia's annexation of Crimea.
Obama was a fool to consider this the real problem. Infact so was the GOP; they are a bunch of hypocrites as far as I"m concerned. They were the ones who gave Obama so much shit in 2014 and cried wolf repeatedly about "Putin's global conquest / strategy to rebuild his soviet empire" all the while Xi DADA was loving every second of it... because for every minute we spent arguing over Russia even to this day is a minute we ignore China. Right now China needs time. This is why
Trump's trade wars are a good things.. do not let the news tell you otherwise. Look at the facts. You have a nation that's building a full-circle of trade routes/shipping ports & military bases, why else? TO be the global superpower. They're sick of taking orders from NATO/U.N. (basically rules we set) because as well know; history is written by the victors. not the losers... Their plan is to effectively get every nation that depends on us to say "fuck America" and go with China instead. Many already have... and when all is said & done; we are pretty much fucked as Western Europe is helpless to defend itself against the combined military & economic might of Russia/China.
2. INDIA
A friend of mine wrote a brief article today about India's industrial/economic growth and how it's currently building the largest railway on Earth (roughly 400KM of India's border with China) which led me to remember/realize that India is making MAJOR moves in terms of bolstering their society as a whole.
I will write more about Nazi Germany, World War II; specifically the Manhattan Project & the 5 year interval from 1939-1944 *discounting 1945; as the war had pretty much been won already by late '44 to spring-summer '45 later, as well as going into depth as to 1939-1945, the Manhattan Project, and why its important as its shaped the world we live in today. as I have a lot to say which warrants its own blog post; for now I want to focus on both China/India's rapid growth and how it will impact the future of the world we live in.
India is progressively and rapidly working to modernize it's military, economy, and technology so that it can be on par with the west or even surpass the west entirely.
India is actively and radically making some IMPERATIVE social/economic/industrial changes that will set the stage for the future in order to modernize their population of 1.4 billion into the 21st century.
There's an extremely interesting investigative journalism segment by Fareed Zakaria on CNN that purports the notion that with the passing of Brexit and more European nations moving toward isolationism/nationalism, we're regressing into an era of history repeating itself; much like it did during the first half of the 20th century, which led to two world wars as we all know. A renown economist (for the life of me I can't remember his name) who holds a Nobel peace prize revealed that while it may be bad news for foreign policy and diplomacy for countries in NATO to return to their nationalist roots, along with general disapproval of the EU by the majority of separatists, conservatives; it's great news for cryptocurrencies.
The segment also revealed that India is going to be a major player in the rise of BTC in the coming years; with only 200,000 Indians having access to internet at the start of January 2017, that number has spiked and risen to an astronomical 460,000,000 in just under 1 year at the start of January 2018, and is set to continue growing.
In a region where 30% of the population don't have electricity or even clean water, smartphones are becoming more affordable and flexible each day (you can get one for as cheap as $2-4 in India) along with this man's campaign to build 40,000 cell towers at 4G ; we're ushering in an era where India has transformed from a country with very few internet users, to the second largest data consumption / internet usage nation in the world (second only to China) all thanks to the cheap, affordable costs of outdated cell phones and a billionaire Indian investors who's hellbent on modernizing India.
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This is all foreshadowing for what's to come in the crypto world... By 2020 you will have over 1 billion people in Asia with internet access yet no bank account... This will be the second (or third) gold rush of BTC, as soon as they find a way to crack the paradox of regulating a currency that literally earned it's worth by being decentralized.
******UPDATE 12/9/2018, 7 months later; I called it. Literally.**** Read Below. #BAKKT #NEXX
IMO this will be done in the form of a token we've yet to see or an exchange that hasn't been created yet (one that uses features like ShapeShift on Exodus) to transfer fiat directly into any crypto yet instead of an independent privately owned exchange it would be a government owned and/or regulated one.
I know it's a complete paradox which goes against everything Satoshi believed in when he began developing #BTC in 2008. Except I'm not sure Satoshi ever knew (at the time) that his decision to create a digital decentralized currency using blockchain would evolve into a virtual online stock market with trillions of dollars in circulation: quickly escalating to the point where it's disrupting the global economy.
As the infamous saying goes "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" is all that's left for BTC and the crypto community.
We're now at that stage where regulators/politicians are realizing they can't beat it; so they're looking for a way to join it. I believe India will play a very crucial & notable role in this transition.
Hope you all enjoyed the read! Thanks! Peace & Love.
- @a1mTarabichi
UPDATE COMPLETE: I DID NOT PROOFREAD: I GOT A BIT CARRIED AWAY ON THE XI DADA BIT; MAINLY BECAUSE THE FIRST VERSION DID NOT INCLUDE NEARLY ENOUGH ON CHINA; SO I"M RETITLING THIS TO INCLUDE China'a influence/impact as well
P.S. There is no way to say this modestly so I"ll just say it. I'm fucking continuously impressing myself as each day passes. I posted this INITIALY 7 1/2 months ago... back when everyone was certain the "bubble would burst" I literally specified that sooner or later a call for a "regulated exchange" would be necessary; and this was while I still had my own reservations.