(For the most part, this mini-essay is pretty disorganized, but hopefully I at least convey a few worthy thoughts. By no means is it perfect or ‘polished’; just getting thoughts out of my mind. Take it with a grain of salt.)

DECENTRALIZATION

For the Crypto uninitiated, let’s start off by providing a definition of Decentralization

Decentralization is beautiful in many ways not least of which is that there is little, if any, third-party interaction with regards to any data or currencies in your wallet.

Decentralized Finance means that YOU and You alone are in control of any and all transactions.

No central authority controls the networks that decentralized financial transactions take place on.

(The above is an extremely basic definition, but the core idea is powerful.)

This is huge, especially for people who are trying to evade despotic regimes.

Imagine it was 1938 and your family is trying to get out of Europe and come to the United States.

Hitler already took over Austria and is now coveting thy neighbor’s wife by way of setting his sights on Czechoslovakia (present day Czech Republic and Slovakia).

You sense things are about to sway way out of control. War and Genocide always bare their red flags early on. You have already bribed your local officials with the asset of your family home and all the possessions left behind when you choose to flee.

You only have the money from the items you were able to sell - but it’s not as much as you wanted because the local marketplace is flooded with others doing the same; selling their possessions to acquire fiat currency or gold.

You then use all of your family’s jewelry/gold to bribe your way out of your country and into a more hospitable/safe one.

Eventually, you run out of Gold or jewels and you’re stuck.

What if everything is seized?

Robbed from you on your travels?

Then you’re sent to internment camps losing all of your possessions and likely your Life and that of your family members as well.

The physical representation of your property is the direct reason why you were unable to protect yourself.

But what if your property or the value you control is stored digitally?

What if only YOU knew the value, location, and access point to your assets/wealth?

What if the economic value in your control COULDN’T be taken from you by force?

Then you could leverage your knowledge of how to access your assets to your benefit-- i.e. of you staying alive unharmed as a means to persuade guards/any dangerous person to let you and your family through on a relatively safe journey, right?

A self-custodial wallet and the nature of Decentralized Finance makes it as close-to-impossible for an evil government or party to seize/control your digital assets as it’s ever been in the History of the world.

Alternate Version - Self-Custodial Assets

Now imagine it’s 1938 all over again, except you have your seed phrase to your digital assets memorized and your assets are secured on whichever Blockchain network you choose. You could sell your house and all of the possessions in it as quickly as possible for crypto; storing the digital currencies in your wallet, to which you alone control the seed phrase to. You memorized your Public and Private Keys and recovery SeedPhrase - so nobody can access those funds except you. You went full **Hernán Cortés **and ‘Burned the Ships!’ so there’s no turning back.

You travel light as possible. Bribing only when absolutely necessary and accessing the wallet to disperse funds to guards for bribes.

The guards never know how much you actually have in the wallet, or how many wallets you have in total, only that you are paying the bribe set before you.

The guards cannot just take your funds. There needs to be compliance on your behalf and you will not comply unless you and your family are safe from harm.

They can’t even really beat it out of you because at some point, you’ll just be unconscious and won’t be able to remember the seed phrase to recover the wallet.

Your power is the access to the funds that cannot be taken from you by force; their power is that they can beat you or kill you. This is where the Game Theory sets in and the beauty of the 4th quadrant comes to Life.

GAME THEORY

I probably messed up or convoluted parts here, but whatever, I’m not a Game Theorist and I hurriedly put this together, so obviously this twisted version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma isn’t going to be perfect (“BuT wHaT iF tHe gUaRdS bEaT YoU aFtEr yOu pAY?” then half before/half after you’re free. That’s for the negotiator). But getting this mini-essay Done and out of my head is better than hanging onto it and Done is 99% of the time better than perfect.

Your objective is to live to see another day and the guard’s objective is to enrich himself - unless he’s a black soul lusting for blood; which means you’re most likely dead upon first approach, but more often than not, the guard will be morally opposed to following orders and would seek to place his own personal wealth accumulation goals above those of the murderous regime, so it seems so long as the incentives are aligned; a mutually beneficial deal can take place.

In Quadrant 1, it’s a Lose-Lose situation; meaning you lose your Life and the guards in turn lose any possible payout from a bribe with you because they acted upon an urge for bloodshed.

In Quadrant 2, we see a Win-Lose scenario where you get away with your Life, but lose all of your assets because the price at this border checkpoint are just too expensive. So the Guards enriching themselves win, but the game of survival in essence ends here unless you figure out a new way to acquire a valuable asset to bribe guards at the next border/checkpoint.

In Quadrant 3, we see a Lose-Win scenario where the guards at this particular checkpoint lose, and you Win by surviving another day. You didn’t like the price they were requesting, so you made a run for it and eventually came across guards who were more open to a reasonable price for crossing the border/checkpoint. This seems similar to a win-win, but now those guards are made aware of your presence in their region and could make it their objective to capture or kill you just to enrich their careers within the evil regime. So there’s huge risk here for you; hence why it’s not a Win-Win.

In Quadrant 4, we see a Win-Win scenario where the guards are economically enriched and you also get to advance on your journey relatively safely. You survive to live another day and that is your core objective.

In this example, we see that you can negotiate safe travel and bribe your way out of harms way. Your secret negotiating power is that you can claim to the guards that you only have, say $1,000 for a bribe in the wallet; and they don’t know the full contents of the wallet or even how many wallets you have; they only know that you have a wallet and you alone possess the access to it.

I hope I’m doing a good enough job of making self-custody/decentralization clear here and how it could have saved a lot of lives in World War II.

The Double-Edged Sword of Decentralization

Now, let’s fast forward to present day here.

Russia legalized Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies…

Bitcoin (and other crypto’s) is(/are) an alternate solution to SWIFT…

What’s SWIFT?

SWIFT is The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT).

Basically, it’s a banking Co-Op for settling transactions between nations. It’s a big time bank for the world’s big time players.

Inclusion in the SWIFT banking Co-Op is extremely important because it’s a banking relationship on a global scale that allows you access to buy/sell pretty much anything with any country around the world easily.

Russia legalizing crypto, as an investment, in their country, a few weeks before this invasion of Ukraine is extremely concerning.

This move gives Russia what seems to be financial stability and the ability to finalize payments outside of the SWIFT system directly circumventing US sanctions.

Essentially, America and the Western World’s ability to weaponize the dollar against foreign countries is fading into the darkness*.*

This is the Double-Edged Sword of Decentralization!

Decentralization can help the individual to remain sovereign and decouple from an evil & overbearing government; but at the same time, it can allow despotic dictators to conduct business as usual avoiding any and all consequences for their actions which ruin lives.

Decentralization is Good, but it’s also bad…

It all depends on the intentions of the person behind the wheel!

Freedom through Decentralization also means the Freedom to be Evil.

THE PETRODOLLAR DEATH SPIRAL

It is possible that Russia and China (including them now because of Taiwan) will succeed where Libya, Iraq, Venezuela, and Iran have failed.

Now, more than ever, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies make it plausible that a completely alternate and redundant financial system can operate outside of NATO and the global traditional banking system.

Russia, China and other governments can act without sanctions actually affecting them. They are now able to commit acts of war (Russia invading Ukraine; China invading Taiwan) totally impervious to punishment.

This is troubling to me.

On the one hand, I’m in love with the thought of freedom and how decentralization and cryptocurrencies allow for self-custody, but then how do you stop bad actors with malicious intent?

Freedom through Decentralization also means the Freedom to be Evil.

What if Germany under Adolf Hitler could use Bitcoin to conduct business outside of the reach of sanctions? That would mean his power would likely have been much greater than what the world already saw.

What if Putin invading Ukraine is just the beginning?

What if after Ukraine, it’s Hungary?

What if he keeps on invading westward into Poland, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, UK?

Russia invading the Ukraine is massive in terms of geopolitical power, influence, and wealth.

It quite literally is a “NEW WORLD ORDER”.

Will sanctions from the US and it’s Allies actually have an effect on Russia?

Only time will tell.

But Putin doesn’t seem to care either way. Which leads me to believe he has a backup plan. A plan to evade and circumnavigate sanctions.

THE IMPORTANCE OF UKRAINE

Russia overtaking Ukraine is a massive move toward Russia becoming a completely autonomous state.

Let’s consider these facts from a random status floating around Facebook 🤣:

This is why Ukraine matters:

It is the second largest country in Europe by area and has a population of over 43 million persons - more than Poland by about 6 million.

Ukraine ranks:

• 1st in Europe in proven recoverable reserves of uranium ores;

• 2nd place in Europe and 10th place in the world in terms of titanium ore reserves;

• 2nd place in the world in terms of explored reserves of manganese ores (2.3 billion tons, or 12% of the world's reserves);

• 2nd largest iron ore reserves in the world (30 billion tons);

• 2nd place in Europe in terms of mercury ore reserves;

• 3rd place in Europe (13th place in the world) in shale gas reserves (22 trillion cubic meters)

• 4th in the world by the total value of natural resources;

• 7th place in the world in coal reserves (33.9 billion tons)

  Ukraine is an important agricultural country:

• 1st in Europe in terms of arable land area;

• 3rd place in the world by the area of black soil (25% of world's volume);

• 1st place in the world in exports of sunflower and sunflower oil;

• 2nd place in the world in barley production and 4th place in barley exports;

• 3rd largest producer and 4th largest exporter of corn in the world;

• 4th largest producer of potatoes in the world;

• 5th largest rye producer in the world;

• 5th place in the world in bee production (75,000 tons);

• 8th place in the world in wheat exports;

• 9th place in the world in the production of chicken eggs;

• 16th place in the world in cheese exports.

• Ukraine can meet the food needs of 600 million people.

  Ukraine is an important industrialized country:

• 1st in Europe in ammonia production;

• Europe's 2nd’s and the world’s 4th largest natural gas pipeline system;

• 3rd largest in Europe and 8th largest in the world in terms of installed capacity of nuclear power plants;

• 3rd place in Europe and 11th in the world in terms of rail network length (21,700 km);

• 3rd place in the world (after the U.S. and France) in production of locators and locating equipment;

• 3rd largest iron exporter in the world

• 4th largest exporter of turbines for nuclear power plants in the world;

• 4th world's largest manufacturer of rocket launchers;

• 4th place in the world in clay exports

• 4th place in the world in titanium exports

• 8th place in the world in exports of ores and concentrates;

• 9th place in the world in exports of defence industry products;

• 10th largest steel producer in the world (32.4 million tons).

Ukraine matters. That is why Ukraine's independence is important to the rest of the world.

As you can see above, Ukraine is Natural Resource rich.

More importantly, Ukraine is a gateway to the rest of Europe

And as long as Russia has those natural resources, they will dominate economically.

The world is in no shortage of nations and businesses requiring natural resources.

Which spells disaster for the US and our currency being used as a reserve currency for trading globally.

Russia having even more power and control of natural resources means they will now have more influence over which currency those vast stores of natural resources are transacted with.

This could lead to a Petrodollar Death Spiral where fewer and fewer nations trade on the open market with American Dollars as the reserve currency because of Russia’s influence over so many of their natural resources. Russia is a major trade partner to just about everyone.

Not to mention that over the past 30 years, Russia and China have been colluding with Brazil and India economically to eventually be independent of American influence.

It’s plausible, in some respects, to assume that BRIC nations are the new Axis of Evil.

Russia, no doubt, seized this opportunity under a ‘sleepy Joe’ Biden Presidency, to act swiftly and authoritatively to expand his sphere of influence and power.

If Putin respected and feared Joe Biden and NATO, Russia would have probably thought twice before they invaded Ukraine. We don’t know for certain, but Sun Tzu would be proud of both Putin and Xi Jinping of China for how they are going about expanding their respective spheres of influence.

This is a concerted effort.

And because of Decentralized Finance, it is now nearly impossible to economically hamper a Bad Actor’s ability to commit evil in the world.

Let’s make no mistake, I still love Bitcoin, Crypto and DeFi; but that doesn’t mean I am not a fan of how these revolutionary technologies can be used for Evil.

WAR IS EVIL.

Plain and simple - anybody who disrupts peace and stability is evil.

Decentralization is a double-edged sword.

It’s about Freedom and self-sovereignty; but that same freedom can be extended to those with evil intent.

And that’s a Moral Dilemma for me. I had only ever viewed Decentralization from the viewpoint of an end-user like a consumer or a citizen shielding themselves from the power hungry; but it’s really unnerving to think that technology meant to free people could actually be used against them.

That Bitcoin and Blockchain tech can be used to freely finance acts of war.

What if Russia is going to use crypto to transact with the Axis of Evil?

Does that mean game over for us?

What if Hitler had the same ability to shield assets and wealth from all of his enemies?

What if he could transact with his Axis of Evil effortlessly and uninterrupted?

Theoretically, he could have possibly gone on to kill even more people; conquered even more lands.

Souls matter.

And it’s very obvious that people like Hitler and Putin DO NOT VALUE HUMAN LIFE.

In 2008, Ukraine applied to join NATO and to further cement a relationship with the western world and the world overlooked them.

This is all a long time coming and it’s clear that Putin is seeking to re-establish the USSR. He was 39 years old in 1991 when the USSR dissolved and no doubt that had a serious impact on his Life. He grew up during a time of extreme propaganda and nationalism, and in his Mental Model, Ukraine belongs to Russia. He’s been working towards this for decades now.

It frightens me that although Ukrainian citizens now have a new way to shield their wealth from confiscation and a newfound means of exiting the sphere of Russian influence, but also that Russia can use those same decentralized wallets and tools to protect itself from NATO sanctions.

APPEASING AGGRESSORS

It frightens me that, if NATO doesn’t do anything here, it could simply be an appeasement. A slap on the wrist to Putin and other aggressors around the world.

An example of appeasement is the infamous 1938 Munich Agreement, in which Great Britain sought to avoid war with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy by taking no action to prevent Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 or Germany's annexation of Austria in 1938.

I mean, it was just over a month after the Munich Agreement was signed on September 30th 1938 that Kristallnacht happened and a year after Kristallnacht, Germany went on to invade Poland.

History moves fast.

So it was very clear then, 84 years ago, that Hitler didn’t incur any type of punitive damage from the Munich Agreement and he simply forged ahead with his evil ambitions.

At the time, Winston Churchill was estranged from Government but he publicly denounced the Munich Agreement by saying it was “an unmitigated disaster”. Neville Chamberlain agreed to allow Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland on a promise that Hitler wouldn’t continue annexing land. Neville, for economic reasons, didn’t want to wage war again considering Europe was still recovering from the first world war.

But Hitler didn’t give a f*ck.

Churchill saw the writing on the wall.

Churchill understood human behavior and that if no consequences were to be felt by Hitler, his behavior would escalate. Sure enough, it did.

It’s the age old “Camel’s Nose” parable.

Putin and Hitler could be similar in behavior here. They are the Camel’s.

One small ask or appeasement always leads to more asks and then further appeasement.

This behavior must be nipped in the bud.

Early intervention is key.

It frightens me that this is only the beginning!

Like most people, I just want peace.

We are beyond speaking softly but carry a big stick diplomacy here.

That ship has sailed.

I fear that it’s far too late for peace and that the ripple effects of Russia’s behavior will be felt around the world for years to come.

I’m sick of living through massively historical events.