VIENNA, Nov 07 (IPS) – Ahead of this year’s COP27 in Egypt, industry and government representatives from 15 developing countries across Asia, Latin America and Africa met in a series of consultations about the challenges and opportunities they face in decarbonizing some of their most energy intensive industries like steel, cement and concrete.
A report from these consultations – which were organized by the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), where I work – will be released during COP27’s Decarbonisation Day (Friday 11 November) and should be widely-read by decision-makers across energy, environment and industrial sectors.
During these meetings, it was evident that the pace of progress so far is too slow and that puts us at real risk of not meeting global climate commitments. It simply won’t be sufficient for industrialized countries to lower emissions within their boundaries and enforce restrictions for products entering their markets. This must happen everywhere.
Global action and new forms of inter-sectoral cooperation are urgently needed to address critical questions including: what are the opportunities for emissions reductions, and what is needed to deliver these reductions in the fastest and most economical way?
How do we speed up the development and implementation of new carbon-cutting technologies – and ensure that they are widely accessible and affordable, including to small and medium sized enterprises?
Currently, many developing country governments do not have reliable and up-to-date data on the emissions of their different industries and how they compare internationally. Relatively little has been established so far in the way of infrastructure to facilitate the widespread introduction of new and emerging technologies for industrial decarbonization.
Access to and know-how about low-carbon technologies is largely concentrated within industrialized countries and large multinational companies.
This must change. For industrial decarbonization efforts to succeed, we need to see significantly increased investments in research and development into new technologies – but we also need to scale up the deployment of technologies that exist but are not yet widely available, including those for carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS).
We also need to much more widely implement strategies and technologies that are already available and affordable – including on energy efficiency, which lowers the demand for energy including from renewable sources.
This likely requires new funding for technical assistance to help make markets in developing countries ready and able to implement low-carbon technologies. It’s not just about funding individual projects, but about really coming up with more meaningful ways to partner around spreading technology our planet urgently needs. Industrialized countries cannot leave developing ones to ‘do this on their own’.
Some of the steel and cement (which is also used to make concrete) businesses working in developing countries are multinational companies which are bringing decarbonizing technologies into their operations from abroad. This is a good thing.
But there are also local companies – including within the supply chains of these multinationals – which need to be involved in order to make decarbonization succeed.
In India, for example, more than half of the steel manufacturing industry is small and medium sized enterprises without the same access to these technologies. Does this local market currently have the technical capacity to adopt and service new hydrogen fuel installations, for example?
Unfortunately, the answer is: Not really.
In many cases, these local companies will likely be unaware of the need to actually change their practices to move towards something that’s low-carbon – let alone how to do this and what technology options exist to help them. The speed of change needed means that the world cannot wait for them to do this alone.
Governments everywhere have a role to play here, in ensuring that their policy frameworks drive decarbonization, promote the right technologies and prevent the proliferation of production processes that aren’t low-carbon.
Imagine: If construction products are in demand in a developing country and they’re not already or sufficiently available on the market, a company or investor may see an opportunity to set up a new business – and if stringent regulations aren’t in place, they might do this using outdated technology with higher emissions.
Decarbonization is not the mandate of small steel and cement manufacturers, as participants noted in the pre-COP27 Asia consultation, or their area of expertise.
It is an area that requires collaboration across different sectors – including to get better and more detailed data, and measurement, reporting and verification frameworks on emissions that can help guide government, and industry, decision-making.
Steel and cement companies might often be seen by some of the public as ‘bad guys’. Globally, these sectors do currently contribute about 50% of industrial greenhouse gas emissions.
But they produce essential materials to build our houses, schools and cities and are needed for our growing communities. The demand should not be to stop production today, but to make it low-carbon today.
Without more meaningful global partnerships on industrial decarbonization, there’s a big risk that we won’t be able to deliver on our climate commitments. We cannot afford this.
Countries and industries globally need to move all together towards the same climate goals at the same time. Cooperation – including on policy, infrastructure development, and technology – will be key to doing this.
Rana Ghoneim is the Chief of the Energy Systems and Infrastructure Division, United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in Vienna.
Country consultations mentioned in this op-ed, which will be released during COP27’s Decarbonization Day (Friday 11 November), will be available on the website of UNIDO’s Industrial Decarbonization Accelerator.
This is an opinion editorial by Moustafa Amin, a technology leader with more than 20 years of professional experience across large organizations, service providers and telecom companies.
“Bitcoin Not Blockchain”
If you’re a frequent reader of Bitcoin Magazine or if you’re a Bitcoin enthusiast in general, you might have seen this motto. I came across it numerous times and I agree with it 100%.
Sometimes there could be a minor exception, for instance when the scope is constrained, the context is private and there is no need for tokenization but in most cases, it’s always wise to stick to bitcoin.
Let’s analyze an imaginary case study around IP addresses using a “traffic light” analogy — yellow, red and green.
IP Addresses
I assume that the readers are or at least familiar with how data communications occur across the internet based on the IP protocol (TCP/IP if we want to be technically accurate). The more technological readers may be aware of internet protocol (IP) addresses, like IPv4 and IPv6.
Try to Google “Who controls IP addresses?” You’ll promptly get “IANA: the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority.” IANA is the top authority behind IP address allocation and assignment. There are five different regional internet registries (RIR) with jurisdiction under the IANA.
As a matter of fact, as an individual or a normal internet user you cannot request IP addresses directly from IANA or one of the five RIRs, but only from internet service providers, such as the services offered by mobile or telecom operators.
RIRs and their respective regions
From this architecture, you can imagine a central database of IP addresses held and maintained by IANA.
An imaginary sample of IP addresses database
Let us assume that one day IANA decides to launch a blockchain version of its IP addresses database, wouldn’t that be a legitimate project? The answer depends on their approach and their intention for doing so.
Before we proceed, let us agree on a couple of points:
The term blockchain doesn’t always refer to the underlying technology of Bitcoin as invented (or discovered) by Satoshi Nakamoto. Instead, it has become a marketing term that is widely used by vendors as a buzzword to describe their products in either private or public contexts.
Even with a decentralized version of the IP addresses database, the IP addresses will always remain in IANA’s custody. These resources will never be handed over to the public community.
The Yellow Path
If IANA cares about the integrity, safety and security of their current centralized IP addresses database and wants to make it decentralized over a blockchain by having separate identical copies of the database held in geographically dispersed regions for decentralization and redundancy, they’d look for a solution that will be a mix of decentralized storage (IPFS for example) and private blockchain (cloud-based or open-source). This could be compared to AWS blockchain, Hyperledger, Multichain, etc.
In this case, each regional RIR will be responsible for some nodes that run this private blockchain. Each node will send and receive updates over the blockchain while storing an identical always-updated copy of the IP addresses database.
No token will be required in this solution, and the whole solution will be maintained by nodes falling under either the jurisdiction of IANA or the RIR. As a matter of fact, IANA can pause, stop, restart, truncate or even delete parts of this private blockchain at their will.
Basically, this case is not different from the current situation where IANA can change or even delete parts of the IP addresses database of their centralized database (if they want to). I am not saying they would, but they could.
This path is labeled “yellow” because it could be acceptable as it doesn’t represent any risk to outsiders, i.e., there are no investors who put up money for tokens.
The Red Path
What if IANA decides to launch their blockchain version of IP addresses as a smart contract dApp — using some platform like Ethereum, or even as a separate public blockchain — and tokenizes the whole thing and maybe runs crowdfunding events to distribute these tokens? I won’t waste your valuable time discussing this scenario any further: This would make it no different from the other 20,000 useless altcoins out there!
The Green Path
What if IANA is intelligent enough to keep their IP addresses database truly decentralized over the only really decentralized blockchain — Bitcoin — and allowing payment in sats? A possible option could be an application built on top of Bitcoin or the Lightning Network and integrated with a distributed off-chain storage.
The distributed storage will store the actual IP addresses along with their respective owners. This would happen off-chain to avoid overwhelming the Bitcoin network, but the indexes to the database entries could be stored on chain.
To counteract Bitcoin’s pseudonymity, customers (providers or operators) will still be required to provide identification information for complete ownership of their IP addresses. Unfortunately, this would be in full compliance with know-your-customer laws (KYC) for online surveillance, as you might guess.
Regardless of the abundance of IP addresses, they are limited by nature, meaning that IANA cannot mint or create new addresses out of thin air.
Quick fact: there are slightly less than 4.3 billion IPv4 addresses that were all sold (depletion of IPv4 addresses started back in 2011), while there are 340 trillion, trillion, trillion IPv6 addresses — an insanely huge number so that the minimum IPv6 address allocation is divided by 32 to be equal to the number of all IPv4 addresses out there.
As all transactions will be permanently stored over the ledger, IANA can’t mess around and resell the same chunk of IP addresses to another owner. This is named an “IP address block,” not to be confused with Bitcoin blocks.
The Ideal Path
What if we replace the controlled and surveilled IP addresses with new internet addresses that are based on Bitcoin? These addresses will inherit all Bitcoin’s features, i.e., they will be purely decentralized, secure, future-proof, robust, anonymous, unhackable, controlled by no single authority and many more.
Is it just a dream? For now. If this could be true we would be changing the internet as we know it.
This is a guest post by Moustafa Amin. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
This is an opinion editorial by AlbertaHodl, a Canadian dairy and beef farmer and a passionate bitcoin miner.
This is a farmer’s perspective on why it is a good idea to mine bitcoin.
I was born and raised on a farm. I acquired an economics, business and hard-work degree without actually finishing any post-secondary schooling. Times were tough. My dad split the farm with his brother in 1998. As a 10-year-old, I busted my ass along with my 13-year-old brother because we didn’t have a choice. Money was tight. Interest rates had finally reached “normal” levels and commodity prices were not great, but life was good. Since then, we have been able to successfully expand our operation, buy bigger and better equipment, more land and more animals. Here we are today, in the same boat as a lot of other farmers and ranchers: Big enough to earn a living, but wondering what to do now.
Land around us is pushing $15,000 per acre. Regardless of where you farm, the costs are getting out of hand. New and even used equipment is starting to seem out of reach and low interest rates were about the only positive thing if you needed a loan. Well, kiss that goodbye. When you add on political regulations, fertilizer and labor costs, many of us farmers are reconsidering the next item on our ever-growing wish list. It’s pretty tough to sum up a generic return on investment that includes inputs, irrigation costs, seeding costs, etc., but any farmer is well aware of the long-term investment that equipment, land and animals are. Land doesn’t even pay itself off, but we justify it by using the rest of our operation’s income to squeak in one more parcel, a few more pairs of animals or that bigger piece of equipment that will save us time and money in order for us to buy another tractor, seeder, sprayer, a few more pairs of animals or that one more precious field.
It’s a continual cycle that we have grown accustomed to — a fiat mindset of the modern-day slave. Cheap credit incentivizes borrowing for the boat, the toys, the bigger house, etc; it never ends.
As a lifelong farmer, I understand the hesitancy of exploring other options, doing something new, going outside of our comfort zone. I really do. Bitcoin? Heard about it in 2017. It sounded like a scam, so I didn’t bother to look into it.
I should have.
2020 came around and our family farm was shaken by the politics surrounding COVID-19. We were at a loss. Nothing made sense. The world, and especially Canada, seemed to be going to shit. We had our faith and I cannot begin to explain how much that played a role in our sanity and confusion through the difficult times we were facing. Like many farmers, we were asset rich, but cash poor.
Through the ups and the downs, I stumbled across Bitcoin. Little old me, out in the country, starting to learn and understand money, the timechain, cold storage, proof of work — all the things related to Bitcoin.
Trying to learn as much as I can has made my head spin at times, but I felt hope right away. Bitcoin is hope! My goal is to show why bitcoin is a good investment and good for you if you understand it enough to HODL.
Multigenerational farms naturally have a low time preference so if you understand Bitcoin, then why not start mining the asset that is harder than the land we farm? Being Canadian, property rights have very quickly become a glaring concern.
Since the Justin Trudeau-led government froze bank accounts, many people have woken up to the fact that nothing is really their own anymore. We don’t own our money and we can’t own property without paying multiple taxes. If we have a good year and make lots of money, we have to pay even more taxes. It’s a vicious cycle.
Farmers and ranchers always rely on hard assets for retirement, but watching farmers in the Netherlands and Europe getting bought out as regulations and high energy prices force their hand is a reminder that only bitcoin can truly be yours. This has many of us thinking that maybe the assets that we plan to use for retirement and pass down to our children aren’t quite as safe as we once thought.
Most farmers are looking at a time frame of 10-20 years for return on investment. We now have an option that may return that in much less time. We will gladly buy the neighbor’s farm or field with interest rates at 3-5%. Is it time to consider taking the down payment going toward the next long-term investment and instead buy a shed, some ASICs, a few fans and start a personal stack free of know-your-customer (KYC) tracking? Instead of another $500,000 loan for land, you could take out a smaller loan to get bitcoin mining machines going. There are many benefits: lots of rural power available, machines are a business tax write-off, so instead of buying that nitrogen at $800 per ton, that expensive piece of farming equipment or some more animal pairs, you buy some miners.
Hypothetically, the bitcoin mined could be distributed to whomever you want. Maybe it stays on the farm balance sheet. Maybe it’s part of your succession plan and goes to your kids. Maybe it becomes your retirement savings. That’s the beauty of bitcoin! You get to decide.
If you are running any sort of successful farm, you should be able to deduct the power bill from other income. So even in bear markets when the hash price drops drastically, you can justify keeping machines running. Instead of putting your heart and soul into another piece of land, maybe start mining instead. There are no hail issues, calving problems, drought years or unseen input-cost headaches. You lock in your power, get your electrician to run some wire and some ethernet cord, add some fans and you’re getting a return on investment.
The labor to keep a bunch of ASICs running is much less than one hour per week using grid power. And the machines have the potential to pay out in the hardest asset in the world!
When I first proposed purchasing some bitcoin using our farm’s treasury, my father was beyond skeptical. It was something he didn’t understand, but he did see the need for a sound money that couldn’t be inflated. After numerous conversations, we purchased some to hold on the farm’s balance sheet. We kept going down the rabbit hole and used some of that bitcoin to purchase miners. Over the next month, it was late nights of building out the shed, the tunnel, running wires and waiting for the machines to arrive. The setup was a bit overwhelming at times and relied heavily on a few very helpful Bitcoin Twitter friends to work through the kinks.
Finally, we were hashing. Then came the moment I was waiting for: My Dad said, “Hey, if this bitcoin thing really takes off then my succession planning for the non-farm kids will be a whole lot easier.” He’s at retirement age, yet he understood the implications of a monetary system out of the control of the State.
Not sure where to start? I’m a millennial that hardly uses a computer anymore, but I was able to figure it out. Not sure about power, ethernet and airflow? Talk to an electrician for help with the power needs and reach out to myself or a number of more knowledgeable people on Bitcoin Twitter. Many people took time out of their day to give me suggestions and advice. Mining is not as difficult as you’d think and ASICs are cheap right now. Write them off as business expenses, spend some time researching and start acquiring satoshis.
As a farmer, I always want to trust people, but one of my biggest worries was getting my hands on miners without getting scammed. I hardly knew what bitcoin was, let alone how to transact with it. I was terrified of losing our farm’s bitcoin. Fortunately, I listened to a John Vallis podcast with Steve Barbour from Upstream Data. The way Barbour talked about business operations, economics and integrity immediately gave me a feeling of trust.
I reached out to Upstream Data and asked if they could hook me up. For me, a big part of the deal was being able to pick them up in person at their warehouse; the key, I suppose, was to verify instead of just trusting them. I knew they put trust in me as well if they were willing to have me pick up the miners at their facility. They did their part and I was more than happy to make the drive and pick them up and have a couple beverages with the guys. There are many reliable suppliers out there and I’m not going to say one is better than another.
Currently I’m trying to acquire access to some natural gas wells that have been abandoned on and around our property. Imagine the cost minimization if you don’t have to pay for power from the grid. Imagine creating value from the Earth’s core with no permission.
To summarize, with all the uncertainty in the world, property rights seemingly disappearing, a broken monetary system, inflation skyrocketing, high interest rates, what do you have to lose by putting a small percentage of your operation’s profits into an investment that potentially returns in two years or less? The only labor involved is keeping some computers running. I’d say there is a much larger risk borrowing lots of capital to purchase land or equipment.
Best-case scenario is you start a personal, non-KYC stack, writing the power and ASICs off through the company. That gives you financial freedom for generations to come, anywhere in the world.
All it took was a couple messages of encouragement on Bitcoin Twitter to light a fire under my ass. What’s stopping you?
This is a guest post by AlbertaHodl. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
This is an opinion editorial by Mark Maraia, an entrepreneur, author of “Rainmaking Made Simple” and a Bitcoiner.
The bitcoin price is not the main driver of the meeting of the minds.
I want to issue a few challenges to all Bitcoiners who profess to believe strongly in the value of bitcoin. I always considered myself an outsider until I discovered Bitcoin. That said, I’m a boomer — not exactly a beloved demographic of Bitcoin advocates. I was also trained as a lawyer. What does that mean? Twice cursed. Lawyers are educated and trained to look for the downside. What are the downsides or weaknesses or blindspots in the Bitcoin community? I’m seeing multiple blindspots and feel moved to share a few.
One blindspot of Bitcoiners is that most of us fail to grasp the full power of peer-to-peer human networks as a tool for adoption. That means person-to-person. Bitcoiners as a group are quite willing to teach those curious about Bitcoin one-on-one. My only request is for us all to do more of it.
How many people can you show how to get off zero and get some bitcoin each day, week, month and year? Don’t just have them download a wallet, educate them why Bitcoin is so amazing. We’ve already seen Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady and more recently, Gwyneth Paltrow give away bitcoin. Why not you? What are you waiting for?
If you truly believe that bitcoin’s purchasing power will grow, then you’re sharing some of your satoshis with friends and family is no big deal. If you’re a pleb who doesn’t have much bitcoin, give away a few satoshis via the Lightning Network. Give to the most curious people and educate them through hands-on experience. Is a local economy more resilient if every adult can transact and transmit value using the Bitcoin network? Absolutely. Even if only a small percentage learn, that is much better than the current reality. The more energy expended teaching people one-on-one, the better and more lasting success for bitcoin adoption.
What I have learned from giving away sats to friends and family is that it’s fun and it radically lowers people’s skepticism and distrust of bitcoin. The subtlety helps them interact with the Bitcoin network and is a positive experience because it’s so easy! The goal is to stimulate curiosity. The ease of transfer — without permission from a bank, company or government — is not lost on anyone I’ve done this with, and many of them are financially privileged.
Almost every person is blown away by how easy it is. Sometimes I’ll give my friend $5 worth of bitcoin and have them return $1 via the Lightning Network. If we have one million Bitcoiners giving away sats 20 times per year to nocoiners, that adds another 20 million people to the network each year.
Network adoption requires people using it. But they need to understand it too. Be strategic about who you give bitcoin to. I find many waiters and waitresses are hungry to learn about bitcoin and the pitch is simple. I usually begin with a question, “Have you ever gotten a tip in bitcoin?” or “Ever had a patron offer you a tip in bitcoin?” If they jump out of their shoes and ignore other tables you know they are teachable.
Inflation is running rampant and every time Jerome Powell prints more Monopoly money, we see it show up in the prices we pay for food, energy, housing and other goods and services. Help those who want to see bitcoin as an insurance policy against money printing and help them learn about the most amazing savings technology that preserves purchasing power. Urge them to hold it for at least a year, if not several years. I hope some of you will accept this challenge. If you’re not getting positive feedback, try something new.
Telling people to “have fun staying poor” isn’t a great recruitment tool.
Call To Action
Reach out to one person in the next 48 hours who wants to learn more about Bitcoin and see how it feels to educate them on the Bitcoin network. If you get rejected, it’s probably because you were too preachy or arrogant.
Find out where their monetary pain lies. No pain, no bitcoin. Each person’s monetary pain will be different depending on their country, region, state and family. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to onboarding people.
This is a guest post by Mark Maraia. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
This is an opinion editorial by Mike Ermolaev, head of public relations and content at Kikimora Labs.
Setting The Context: Global Economy Fundamentals
The economy is still recovering from the COVID-19 outbreak as new problems arise. We are now in a time of rampant inflation with central banks trying to remedy that by raising interest rates.
The U.S. CPI data (consumer price index), released on October 13, came in higher than expected (8.2% year-over-year), negatively impacting the bitcoin price. But inflation is not the only issue, the global economy is also struggling with the energy crisis, affecting Europe more than the U.S., due to its strong dependency on Russian natural gas and raw material.
On the eastern side, the war in Ukraine with ensuing sanctions on Russia, add further geopolitical instability and economic uncertainty. Also, China’s zero-COVID policy is disrupting the supply chain worldwide, and the Evergrande default undermines one of the world’s biggest economies.
If we look at the main currencies, the dollar index looks strong, compared to others. The Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 75 basis points in November, and the Bank of England raised interest rates by the same amount. This policy of quantitative tightening aims to reduce the money supply and mitigate price pressure. It is likely to continue into next year and beyond. However, a global recession and risk of stagflation is still very strong, so no country may feel safe from central bank monetary policy.
Bitcoin Correlation With The Economy
Bitcoin has shown not to be immune from this global turmoil. Although the price in its early stage was independent of traditional finance, correlation began to show in 2016.
The idea of bitcoin as a “digital gold” became popular because both shared the scarcity and difficulty of extraction (mining), as well as fulfilled the role of being a store of value. Since many view bitcoin as a risk asset, its correlation with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 became visible — no different than traditional stocks.
At the time of writing, bitcoin’s 40-day price correlation with gold reached 0.50 (after being around zero in August). According to Alkesh Shah and Andrew Moss, strategists from Bank of America:
“A decelerating positive correlation with SPX/QQQ and a rapidly rising correlation with XAU indicate that investors may view bitcoin as a relative safe haven as macro uncertainty continues and a market bottom remains to be seen.”
Negative Events
There are some macroeconomic factors in the larger cryptocurrency ecosystem that contributed to a bearish market: the Terra/LUNA collapse, forced liquidation of Three Arrows Capital and the bankruptcy of Celsius being the main ones.
Despite all the above adverse events, bitcoin was able to somehow keep its price in the $19,000-$20,000 range, with record-low volatility. Currently, we are observing unusual stability in the bitcoin price, recently even matching volatility of the British pound.
On the contrary, stocks have experienced high volatility and whipsaw price action, also following speculations about the Fed’s future decisions. According to Bloomberg’s Chief Commodity Strategist Mike McGlone, that’s why bitcoin may rise after a steep discount and eventually beat the S&P 500. He believes that bitcoin’s finite supply and deflationary approach may help it recover its previous price levels.
Since the last flash crash in mid-June, the price has been quite steady, but we know it rarely sits still for too long. This means that the probability of a sudden (bullish or bearish) breakout increases over time. The longer the price remains idle, the stronger the breakout is going to be.
Bitcoin price consolidation
Additionally, the BTC futures open interest is higher than ever, with liquidations reaching all-time low. A lot of liquidity is accumulating here, meaning that there will be an even stronger impulse when the price starts to move again.
According to the strategist Benjamin Cowen, bitcoin is expected to rise to “fair value,” after falling an additional 15%. “Right now, the data would suggest that we’re about 50% undervalued compared to where the fair value is.” Cowen thinks we may need to wait until early 2024 to see this rise happen.
Goldman Sachs strategist Kamakshya Trivedi has a different view, claiming that the U.S. dollar index, showing record values since 2002, may be bad news for the currently bearish bitcoin.
A Bearish Scenario: Could The 2018 Drop Happen Again?
Some analysts have been wondering if the 2018 scenario (low volatility, then big price drop) may happen again today because the market conditions look quite similar. We have the same 10% trading range and we know something is going to happen soon.
Comparison between 2022 BTC price (top) versus 2018 (bottom) using eight-hour candles. (Source)
A remarkable difference between the two cycles is that in 2018 there was an increase in addresses sent to spot exchanges, while in our current cycle we are observing liquidity moving away from exchanges and not many new addresses being created. According to a CryptoQuant analyst, this should mean that we won’t witness a similar scenario to 2018.
A 2018/2022 comparison of spot exchange depositing addresses. (Source)
What About Uptober and Moonvember?
Historically, Q4 is a great time for bitcoin, with bullish trends starting in October and increasing in November. So the months of October and November were colloquially renamed “Uptober” and “Moonvember” — at least, this is what happened back in 2021.
Can we still expect such a bullish Q4 in 2022? It’s hard to say, but the adverse macroeconomic situation and geopolitical issues make it harder to imagine the same rally we saw last year. After all, the bitcoin market has been down for 10 consecutive months and we don’t see any particular sign of recovery at the moment.
We must also keep in mind that, despite the negative global scenario, the “safe haven” role of bitcoin may contribute to giving the price some additional strength, especially in these troubled times.
Exchange Data Analysis
Liquidation data on the Bitfinex exchange was analyzed by filbfilb. He concluded that an upward breakout would have less momentum than a downward one. In fact, liquidity above $20,500 is mostly 10x, while liquidity below $18,000 is predominantly 10x, 5x and 3x, which means that a bullish breakout would be “less brutal” than a bearish one.
We are currently witnessing a period of stasis in the bitcoin market. The bitcoin price needs to start moving again after two months of consolidation. The overall economic scenario doesn’t look bright at all, and bitcoin is correlated to events in the real world, but investors can still recognize the digital gold, safe-haven role of the most popular cryptocurrency. A strong bitcoin price breakout is expected, with new volatility incoming.
The possible scenarios may be: a quick dump and then a bullish recovery (V-shaped bounce) or a longer and deeper price collapse, after the break of the $19,000 resistance level.
Whatever happens, bitcoin will keep being the most innovative technology of the last decade, allowing financial freedom and direct control over one’s own wealth. Bitcoin has historically witnessed numerous strong bearish times and has always recovered from them.
This is a guest post by Mike Ermolaev. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
This is an opinion editorial by Alex Lielacher, founder and CEO of Rise Up Media, a content marketing firm for Bitcoin startups.
The Guy Fawkes mask — popularized by the movie “V For Vendetta” — has become a symbol of resistance against the State, worn by anti-government protesters of all factions. Bitcoiners have also picked up the mask, highlighting Bitcoin’s own struggle against the powers that be who control and benefit from the corrupt fiat currency monetary system.
Now that it is the fifth of November, here’s a reminder that Bitcoin is more than number-go-up technology. At its core, it’s a monetary revolution that has the potential to change the world forever.
Why Does Britain Celebrate The Fifth Of November?
“Remember, remember, the fifth of November. Gunpowder, treason, and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.”
Ask anyone in the U.K. about Guy Fawkes, and they’ll most likely quote you this poem. The fifth of November is a day when we remember one of the most notorious acts of rebellion against the state on European soil. On November 5, 1605, a group of Roman Catholic Church followers attempted to blow up parliament and kill King James I. The leader of the plot, Robert Catesby, together with his four co-conspirators — Thomas Winter, Thomas Percy, John Wright and the infamous Guy Fawkes — were angered by King James’ refusal to grant more religious toleration to Catholics.
Through this plot, they hoped that the confusion, which would follow the murder of the king, his ministers and the members of Parliament, would provide an opportunity for the English Catholics to take over the country.
However, their plan didn’t work.
They were caught and later hanged for treason. Their action resulted in even more punishment against the Catholic Church. In January 1606, the U.K. Parliament established November 5 as a day of public thanksgiving.
Today we celebrate November 5 as Guy Fawkes Night or Bonfire Night by lighting bonfires, setting off fireworks and carrying “Guys” through the streets wearing the ever-so-famous Guy Fawkes mask.
The Changing Symbolism Of The Guy Fawkes Mask
The comic and, later, the movie, “V For Vendetta” turned the Guy Fawkes mask into a symbol with many different meanings.
It’s no longer only memorabilia for the fifth of November, but a symbol against power, corruption and the state apparatus, as well as a means to protect your identity during a time of omnipresent surveillance.
One of the most obvious symbols of the mask is the uprising against the powers that be.
Throughout the film “V For Vendetta,” the character V’s identity is never revealed. There was no need to know who he was. The meaning in the graphic novel actually goes a step further and utilizes V’s facelessness to promote anarchy in the hopes of creating a new world order without leaders.
This vision is one that many protestors or anarchists share as well. Whether they are hacktivist collectives like Anonymous, which is keen to unveil corruption and abuse of power, or protestors against state tyranny in Venezuela, India, Bahrain or Nigeria. Once they put on the mask, they become not only a protestor against power, but also a symbol for others to follow their lead. One person alone with the mask on their face is meaningless, but once a collective puts on the mask, it becomes the symbol against tyranny.
Obviously, it’s a guard to protect one’s privacy as well, which is why you see so many Guy Fawkes masks at protests. And this blends into online culture as well.
Satoshi Nakamoto is arguably one of the most famous anonymous activists of the past 20 years. In fact, one of the most portrayed versions of Nakamoto is as someone wearing a Guy Fawkes mask and hoodie. Like V in the movie, it was Nakamoto who launched a vendetta with the financial world.
They didn’t seek vengeance by hacking the legacy financial system, but rather by creating a system in which everyone is able to transact freely. Once the project was big enough and able to live on its own, Nakamoto left, never to return, thereby nurturing the idea of a movement without any leaders — a leaderless resistance against the fiat monetary system.
One of the main aspects of Bitcoin is its ability to separate money from the State. This separation is what unites Bitcoiners with protesters on the streets in Venezuela, hacktivists online and Guy Fawkes back in 1605. All of them had or have the goal of dethroning powerful institutions for a better and freer society.
Why Anon Bitcoiners Wear The Guy Fawkes Mask
The Guy Fawkes mask is not only a symbol against tyranny but also a shield of protection to hide your identity. And anonymity is a big part of Bitcoin culture.
Anon Bitcoiners want to protect themselves from the establishment, and the possible repercussions of having their identity linked with a technology that has the potential to topple existing monetary structures that benefit the few in power.
While Bitcoin is slowly being integrated into the legacy financial system, adding to its legitimacy in the eyes of governments, regulators and big banking, the potential for a ban — as Bitcoin is a way to circumvent the coming central bank digital currency (CBDC) surveillance apparatus — remains a threat.
History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
If you look at what happened with gold in the United States in 1933, where citizens were essentially robbed of their gold possessions, it would be foolish to think that similar plans don’t also exist for Bitcoin.
Now, one could say as long as you have your private keys and secure your wallet in a multisig structure, not much can happen. That might be true for your bitcoin. But the fact that your identity is linked to a potentially soon-to-be-banned technology poses a risk.
Anons are able to opt out of that dystopia by wearing a metaphorical Guy Fawkes mask and remaining anonymous. They cut off their real-life personas from their online personas, allowing them to continue to remain unlinked to Bitcoin by name.
Bear in mind, in the future, CBDCs will exist and will likely emerge as the main tool of surveillance for the establishment. That is another reason why the mask became a symbol against the establishment, whether that be in the Bitcoin space or in activist groups like Anonymous.
All of these different groups are willing to stand up against tyranny by “putting on the mask.”
Symbols are only effective if enough people stand up for them. A single Guy Fawkes mask is worthless. However, if thousands of people wear them at protests or have them on in their profile pictures online, they’re able to put pressure on the establishment.
Statements like “Bitcoin is a peaceful revolution” or “Fix the money, fix the world” have the goal of peaceful anarchy or revolution within them. They don’t want to kill or destroy innocent lives. That’s what the establishment is doing with its endless proxy wars. The goal is to inform citizens and give power back to the individual.
Is Bitcoin The Fiat Monetary System’s Gunpowder Plot?
The simple answer to this question is yes, absolutely.
However, Bitcoiners don’t plan to blow up parliament. Although I am sure there are Bitcoiners living under truly tyrannical state rule who may be working on overthrowing their governments, Bitcoiners want to change the world peacefully, without bloodshed or physical harm to anyone.
In “V For Vendetta” and the gunpowder plot of 1605, the goal was to topple the existing power structure at all costs. The characters were willing to sacrifice human lives to see the change they envisioned. This is very different from Bitcoin.
Bitcoin doesn’t need a violent uprising. Bitcoin is the uprising. Bitcoin itself is a peaceful revolution. There is no need to physically occupy Wall Street or hold bank employees hostage in a robbery. All anyone has to do to take part in the Bitcoin revolution is to become part of the Bitcoin network by running a node and spreading awareness of the power that Bitcoin holds to change the world.
Bitcoin is antifragile, hard to change and secure by design. These qualities are the gunpowder of Bitcoin. There were many attempts to change its fundamentals — the Blocksize Wars, for example — but none of the attackers were successful in their attempts.
Bitcoin’s core of believers stuck to Nakamoto’s vision, one that is still alive today. Everyone on earth has the opportunity to take part in the Bitcoin network, benefitting from its ability to enable anyone to store, send and receive value without censorship or needing to ask for approval. That’s why the establishment fears it.
The establishment doesn’t want you to own anything. Its members are the ones telling you what to eat, drink and spend your hard-earned money on. If you don’t obey, it will enforce new rules or shut you off by controlling your bank account. This is why CBDCs are so dangerous, as they can, in theory, give this establishment complete control over all your financial transactions.
Just by owning and using bitcoin, you don’t have to follow these rules. You have the option to opt out.
If there is one thing the gunpowder plot or “V For Vendetta” has taught us, it’s the power of collective minds. The establishment is afraid of more public support for Bitcoin because it knows that once we hit a certain threshold, there won’t be any going back.
The establishment can’t turn Bitcoin off like a server.
Without realizing it, it has built a monster. It was because of bad financial incentive structures in the past that Nakamoto created Bitcoin. The greed of the establishment was what led us here.
One by one, from the bottom up, we’ve risen and continue to give people hope, courage and a vision for a better tomorrow.
Remember, Remember, What Bitcoin Could Really Accomplish
In the third act of “V For Vendetta,” the character Evey has overcome her fear of death. She knows there won’t be any going back, and the plotted revolution on the fifth of November is unavoidable, regardless of her own life.
In the real world, the establishment has gotten to where it is today because it has been able to corrupt the system with fiat money. If it ever needed more, it was able to print it. Up until today, it was somewhat successful. But its time is running out.
You can only print so much money before it starts inflating away. The result of that rigorous spending is visible now.
Figureheads like Christine Lagarde of the European Central Bank or Andrew Bailey of the Bank of England don’t know how to stop inflation. They don’t see any other solution but to print more money and to throw more money at the problem. As we know, however, that doesn’t work.
Bitcoin fixes this.
Bitcoin’s limited supply, combined with its disinflationary monetary policy, enables holders to protect themselves from the long-term effects of inflation. But that’s not all.
Bitcoin is also freedom money. It allows anyone in the world to participate in a new monetary system free of the chains of the fiat currency apparatus. No ruler, no regulator and no bank can lock you out of your bitcoin as long as you hold your own keys.
That is the true power of Bitcoin. It provides us with financial sovereignty and the power to choose our own destiny.
This is a guest post by Andrew Lielacher. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
This is an opinion editorial by Tomer Strolight, editor-in-chief of Swan Bitcoin and author of “Why Bitcoin.”
History is neither merely what happened hundreds of years ago, nor only wars and human catastrophes. If you zoom out just a bit, you can see that history happens all the time. Our civilization, our culture, our technology and even we ourselves are changing — influenced by megatrends that shape all humanity. Changes often happen fast, but their imprint remains.
Even just taking a snapshot of highlights from a single year over a few 10-year periods reveals how much change occurs. Consider the years 2012, 2002, 1992 and 1982.
Only 10 years ago the median house price had tumbled to $238,400, still coming off the housing crash of 2008. Ten years before that it had been $188,700. And 10 years earlier it was just $119,500, while in 1982 it was only $69,600. Today it’s $454,900.
Time Magazine’s “Man Of The Year” in 1982 was the personal computer.
Oh, how the news and culture have changed also. For example, in 1975 there was concern that an ice age was coming after America experienced its coldest winter in a hundred years. In 1981, MTV, a TV channel dedicated then to showing music videos, had just come on the air. It seems like a completely different civilization, but roughly one half of America’s current population was alive at the time and experienced it.
Of course, all this took place under the dual forces of the ever-expanding creep of fiat currency and the rapid advancement of computing technology. These are probably the two strongest megatrends over the whole time period. One was exponentially inflationary; the other, deflationary. One was based on hard science; the other on wishy-washy, postmodern economic theories. One delivered goods that seemed magical; the other brought crisis after crisis. The battle between these two forces now appears to be at a climax and history is about to be made again.
The coexistence of these two forces that defined history over the last 40 years may be coming to an end. Technology and central banking are clashing. Technology has brought forth its champion to slay fiat money. And we all know who that champion is: Bitcoin. Bitcoin will be the resolver of a historic tug-of-war over control of the wealth of humankind. As the government is going digital, digital is going at the government. We are here to witness the spectacle. And to be a part of it.
At Pacific Bitcoin, we will be trying to create our own version of a time machine to explore the last 40 years of history through dialogue. Over two days, four separate panels will take the stage to discuss 1982, 1992, 2002 and 2012, focusing on the culture, the economy and the technology of the times. Panelists will include Jeff Booth, Greg Foss, Bob Burnett, Warren Togami, Lawrence Lepard, Carla from the Crypto Couple, Ben de Waal, Isaiah Jackson, Dustin Trammel, Allen Farrington and Pete Rizzo. I hope to see you there.
This is a guest post by Tomer Strolight. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
This is an opinion editorial by Holly Young, Ph.D., an active builder in the Portuguese Bitcoin community.
Way back when people thought the earth was flat, it was more or less here, in Portugal where I am writing this, that people thought that the earth ended. And if you look out to the sea, you can understand why, as the gray Atlantic stretches as far as the eye can see to America in one direction, and to North Africa in another. Names referring to the edge of the earth (“Fisterra,” “Finisterre”) are common along the Atlantic coastline.
Image source: Author
Portugal’s visa process, for those of us who are not European, although somewhat slow, is manageable and does not necessarily involve parting with too large a slice of your Bitcoin stash. A D7 visa, for example, requires only that you display means of income or passive income (and yes, they consider holding Bitcoin as a means of passive income) and the equivalent of two years of minimum wage on your bank account.
For anyone who has ever visited, I hardly need to expand upon the charms of Portugal. The climate, beautiful landscape, food, incredibly friendly and warm culture all speak for themselves. It is much less focussed on keeping up appearances and status than its Mediterranean sister countries, Italy and Spain. For those keen to live a healthy, outdoor life, be it hiking, surfing, motorbiking or horseback riding — you name it, Portugal is paradise. For those wanting to raise a family here, it’s generally a safe environment, with low crime rates, decent healthcare, some outstanding international schools and a lively home schooling or alternative schooling community.
There is something about Portugal’s history which lends it to being a Bitcoin haven, too. The country was under a dictatorship from the mid 1920s until the mid 1970s, meaning that political oppression and censorship are still very much living memories amongst the local population. Poverty was the norm here, especially before it joined the European Union in the ‘80s, and still Portugal remains one of the poorer European countries.
An influx of Bitcoiners inevitably brings more affluence with it, nourishing the local economies. Portugal’s history, attractive lifestyle and Bitcoin-friendly tax laws make it fertile ground in and of itself for a Bitcoin community.
And then you have the types of people which Portugal has always attracted as immigrants.
Those of us who have washed up and put down roots here in Europe’s deep south do, it seems to me, have some common characteristics. Many of us came to take our children away from the rigid and constrictive school systems of Northern Europe. Many have bought land and are keen to move towards self sufficiency. Many are digital nomads, looking for community — this is especially true further north, in Lisbon. Many are people who work with their hands and make goods to sell. In general, Portugal draws and has always drawn a freedom-minded crowd, when it comes to immigrants. And I can tell you from experience that these people are natural Bitcoiners. Orange pilling here is preaching to the choir, even though many had never heard of bitcoin. Ask them if they would like a decentralized, deflationary, censorship resistant money and the answer is a resounding, “yes!”
None of us know, of course, what the future is going to bring, but whatever it brings, it seems that we should not underestimate the human value of our peer-to-peer network. What I enjoyed the most about the brief period I spent at Bitcoin Beach in El Salvador was the international crowd who wanted nothing more than to talk Bitcoin over dinner. But the benefits of having an active Bitcoin community are not only social ones. We can all see that difficult times are coming with hyperinflation and shortages — for these issues, only parallel economies provide a realistic solution.
During COVID-19, some friends of mine set up what they called a private market on their land. In no time, the first 10 stalls had expanded and there were several hundred shoppers when I visited. Stalls sold local honey, mushrooms, clothing, biochar burners, eggs, meat, jewelry, local liquor, candles and brass ornaments. People offered circus workshops for children, clothing repair — there was live music and a festive atmosphere. Initiatives like this are perfect for introducing bitcoin as the ideal currency for a parallel, local economy, with all the advantages offered by Lightning. As Bitcoiners, we need to actively grasp these opportunities. I’ll be holding a “Bitcoin for Beginners” workshop in the short term, organized through the Telegram group for the market.
On a beach down on the southern coast, Meia Praia, the first green shoots of Bitcoin Beach Europe are starting to sprout. So far, it’s just one little beach bar. But if you go to Bam Bam Beach bar on a Friday evening, you will find live music and an active, international crowd of Bitcoiners there, swapping tales and paying for their cold beers with Lightning. Other initiatives are slowly springing up too. The farm shop owned by a dear friend of mine also accepts sats as payment. A pizzeria down on the south coast in Burgau does too. So does a steakhouse in Almancil. One by one, Bitcoin businesses are appearing and flourishing.
To the European Bitcoiner, the U.S. looks like an enviable hub of Bitcoin meetups, with a tempting array of get-togethers on a regular basis, especially in Nashville and Austin. Here in Europe, we have to work a little harder to get our Bitcoin contact time and our Bitcoin chats in. But there has never been a better time for European Bitcoiners to gather and start holding meetups, information sessions and to start building communities.
Family is first — community is a close second. Just as the integrity of family relationships requires time, effort, commitment and attention, so too does building and keeping a community. Portugal provides the welcome we need for a European Bitcoin community and economy — it has the potential to be Europe’s Bitcoin heartland. But the most vital thing is that we all do our best to contribute to the orange tsunami which hyperbitcoinization will be. “Build back better,” say our politicians, and I wholeheartedly agree — by defunding their regimes, by opting out, by buying bitcoin, by helping those around us to buy bitcoin and by building the community we want to live in ourselves, from the ground up.
This is a guest post by Holly Young. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
MONTREAL, Canada, Nov 04 (IPS) – It is no secret that humankind’s past actions have accelerated the deterioration of ecosystems, negatively impacting our economies, societies, health, and cultures. It is estimated that humans have altered over 97% of ecosystems worldwide, to date. One million species are currently threatened with extinction (IPBES).
The writing on the wall is clear. Our planet is in crisis.
Elizabeth Mrema
The sobering reality is that if we continue on our current trajectory, biodiversity and the services it provides will continue to decline, jeopardizing the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and our lives as we know them. The decline in biodiversity is expected to further accelerate unless effective action is taken to address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss. These causes are often justified by societal values, norms and behaviors. Some examples include unsustainable production and consumption patterns, human population dynamics and trends, and technological innovation patterns.
With biodiversity declining faster than any other time in human history, our quality of life, our well-being, and our economies are under threat. Over 44 trillion US dollars of assets globally, or over half of the world’s GDP, is at risk from biodiversity loss (WEF). Our economies are embedded in natural systems and depend considerably on the flow of ecosystem goods and services, such as food, other raw materials, pollination, water filtration, and climate regulation. But we still have a chance. We still have a narrow window in which to transform our relationship with biodiversity and create a healthy, profitable, sustainable future. We can still bend the curve of biodiversity loss and leave future generations with prosperity and hope. We can still move to support ecosystem resilience, human well-being, and global prosperity.
This has deemed this the decisive decade. This is because after this decade, once we move past 2030, the damage done to our planet will be beyond repair. That doesn’t give us much time but it does still give us a chance. This December in Montreal, Canada we will get that chance. It is likely our only chance. I can’t emphasize that enough. This December, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will bring world leaders together to address the biodiversity crisis at the fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP 15). Truth be told, the outcome of COP 15 will determine the trajectory of humankind on planet Earth.
The ultimate goal of COP 15 is to emerge with a plan, a roadmap to a sustainable future. We call it the post-2020 global biodiversity framework (GBF). The framework is currently being negotiated by Parties under the Convention on Biological Diversity and represents a historic opportunity to accelerate action on biodiversity at all levels. It aims to build on the outcomes of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and its Aichi Biodiversity Targets and achieve the 2050 vision of living in harmony with nature. The draft framework, if adopted and implemented, will put biodiversity on a path to recovery before the end of this decade.
Why is it critical that the GBF is adopted and implemented? Because 90% of seabirds have plastic in their stomachs (WWF UK). Because we have lost half of the world’s corals and lose forest areas the size of 27 football fields every minute (WWF LPR). Because an estimated 4 billion people rely primarily on natural medicines for their health care and some 70 per cent of drugs used for cancer are natural or are synthetic products inspired by nature (IPBES). Because Ecosystem-based approaches (biodiversity) can provide up to 30% of the climate mitigation needed by 2030. Because monitored wildlife populations, including mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish, have seen a devastating 69% drop on average since 1970 (WWF LPR). I could go on and on.
Some key targets within the draft framework include:
Ensuring that at least 30 per cent globally of land areas and of sea areas are protected.
Preventing or reducing the rate of introduction and establishment of invasive alien species by 50%.
Reducing nutrients lost to the environment by at least half, pesticides by at least two thirds, and eliminate discharge of plastic waste.
Using ecosystem-based approaches to contribute to mitigation and adaptation to climate change and ensuring that all climate efforts avoid negative impacts on biodiversity.
Redirecting, repurposing, reforming or eliminating incentives harmful for biodiversity in a just and equitable way, reducing them by at least $500 billion per year.
Increasing financial resources from all sources to at least US$ 200 billion per year, including new, additional and effective financial resources, increasing by at least US$ 10 billion per year international financial flows to developing countries.
The post-2020 global biodiversity framework is not just important, it is critical. It will take a whole-of-society and whole-of-government approach and it will take hard work and commitment; but we can do it. We need to act now to bend the curve to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. COP 15 will be a the most crucial and decisive step towards a better and more sustainable future for generations to come. This is our chance. It’s time to decide on a future.
Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, a national of the United Republic of Tanzania, is the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity
Noeleen Heyzer, UN Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on Myanmar, talks with Rohingya refugees in a camp in Bangladesh. October 2022. Credit: Office of the Special Envoy on Myanmar
Opinion by Jan Servaes (brussels)
Inter Press Service
BRUSSELS, Nov 04 (IPS) – For 10 days in November, the world’s diplomatic attention will largely be focused on three major diplomatic meetings in Southeast Asia.
These include the Group of 20 (G-20) Summit on November 15-16 in Bali, Indonesia, and the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit, which will be held November 18-19 in Bangkok, Thailand.
Both follow the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit and related meetings, which will take place November 8-13 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and include the East Asia Summit.
The meeting in Cambodia will be the first ASEAN meeting that US President Biden will attend in person as last year’s meetings were held remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He will also become only the second sitting U.S. president to visit the country, after President Barack Obama (also for an ASEAN meeting) in 2012.
While in Cambodia, Biden will, according to a White House statement, “explain the importance of advocating cooperation between the US and ASEAN in ensuring security and prosperity in the region, and the well-being of our combined one billion people”.
This is likely to include much reference to ASEAN’s important position in Washington’s “Indo-Pacific” strategy, and its emphasis on its prized position of ‘centrality’ in Asian diplomacy.
The crisis in Myanmar will also be central to all these meetings. In preparation, in June 2022, ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) launched an International Parliamentary Inquiry (IPI) into the global response to the crisis in Myanmar with the aim of providing strategic, principled, achievable and time-bound policy recommendations to international actors, so that they can better work towards an end to violence and a return to democracy in the country.
Their report, titled “Time is not on our side – The failed international response to the Myanmar coup,” was presented at a press conference in Bangkok on Nov. 2.
The IPI is formed by a committee of MPs from seven different countries in Africa, America, Asia and Europe, consisting of IPI President Heidi Hautala (Vice President of the European Parliament), Mercy Chriesty Barends (Member of the House of Representatives in Indonesia and Board Member of APHR), Taufik Basari (Member of the House of Representatives in Indonesia), Amadou Camara (Member of the Gambia National Assembly, and Steering Committee Member of the African Parliamentary Association on Human Rights), Nqabayomzi Kwankwa (Member of the National Assembly Assembly of South Africa, and Chairman of the AfriPAHR), Ilhan Omar (US Congress member), Nitipon Piwmow (MP in Thailand) and Charles Santiago (MP in Malaysia and President of APHR).
The report: “Time is not on our side”
Since the military of Myanmar staged a coup d’état on February 1, 2021, the situation in the country has steadily deteriorated. The military junta, led by Major General Min Aung Hlaing, has waged a brutal war of attrition against its own people, perpetrating countless atrocities and destroying the country’s economy.
Armed forces have killed at least 2,371 people and displaced hundreds of thousands, bringing the total number of displaced persons in the country to more than 1.3 million. The junta has also imprisoned more than 15,000 political prisoners and routinely used torture against those arrested. At the same time, they cracked down on freedom of expression and association, including intense repression against independent media and civil society.
Yet the Burmese resisted en masse. The initial peaceful demonstrations in the immediate aftermath of the coup, as well as the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) in which hundreds of thousands joined a general strike, demonstrated the population’s overwhelming rejection of a return to military rule. The coup has also led to an unprecedented level of unity among those who oppose the military across ethnic borders.
Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG) was formed in April 2021 bringing together parliamentarians ousted in the coup, representatives of ethnic minorities and civil society actors. The NUG rightly claims a mandate as a legitimate representative of the Myanmar people. It enjoys widespread legitimacy and support, especially in the interior of the country, and represents the most inclusive government in Myanmar’s history.
The NUG is committed to the establishment of a new constitution and genuine federal democracy in Myanmar, which would be an important step towards fulfilling the ambitions for autonomy of the country’s ethnic minorities.
The junta’s attempts to quell the resistance with extreme violence failed dramatically, serving only to exacerbate existing tensions and incite some anti-junta activists to turn to armed struggle to defend themselves. Anti-military militias known as People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) – some commanded by the NUG – have been formed across the country, including in previously relatively peaceful areas.
The coup has also sparked a new wave of violence between the military and the Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs), which have struggled for decades for autonomy in the country’s border regions.
Some of these EAOs, such as the armed wings of the Karen National Union (KNU) and the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), have joined the NUG. However, not all EAOs have formally joined the anti-military struggle as Myanmar’s political landscape remains highly complex and fractured.
The escalating violence has accelerated the near collapse of the economy and an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Myanmar’s GDP has fallen by 13 percent since 2019 and 40 percent of the country’s population now lives below the national poverty line. Despite the increased needs, humanitarian actors have struggled to reach vulnerable and remote populations as the military has severely restricted access for humanitarian aid.
Poor response by international community
The international community has been largely unable to respond effectively to the crisis. The junta’s international allies—notably Russia and China—prove steadfast and uncritical supporters, providing both weapons and legitimacy to an otherwise isolated regime.
However, foreign governments that support democracy have not supported their rhetoric with the same force. While a number of countries have imposed sanctions on junta leaders and their personal assets, these efforts remain uncoordinated and have failed to crack down on key revenue-generating entities such as the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE).
The United Nations, in particular, is hampered by internal divisions and appears unable to exert any influence. The NUG has attracted supporters worldwide and continues to occupy Myanmar’s seat at the UN, but most governments are hesitant to formally recognize them, despite calls from parliaments and advocates to do so.
ASEAN unable to respond effectively
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is a member, is also plagued by internal divisions and has been unable to respond effectively. The bloc’s five-point consensus, signed in April 2021 and aimed at tackling the crisis, has failed completely, hampered by a lack of will on the part of all ASEAN member states to enforce it, and a military leadership in Myanmar that has shown no intent to implement it.
While some member states, such as Malaysia, have called for new approaches, including direct involvement with the NUG and other pro-democracy forces, others, including Thailand or Cambodia, remain “junta enablers.”
As Myanmar slides into civil war, the possibility for a negotiated solution to the conflict is almost completely closed. The dialogue prescribed in ASEAN’s five-point consensus is impossible under the current circumstances.
The responsibility lies with the junta, which has shown no willingness to engage with those who oppose it and has instead relied solely on brute force in its effort to wipe out any opposition.
The July 2022 execution of four political prisoners, the country’s first judicial execution since 1988, highlighted both the brutality of the military and its complete disinterest in negotiations. The coup unceremoniously brought an end to the previous power-sharing arrangement with the civilian leadership. Now the vast majority of Myanmar’s population has expressed a clear desire not to return to the status quo of the past.
The military junta has failed to consolidate its power
Nineteen months after the coup, the military junta has failed to consolidate its power. This is also apparent from a recent report by Noeleen Heyzer, the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Myanmar. Large parts of Myanmar’s territory are disputed between the military and forces affiliated with the NUG or EAOs, and it can be argued that the coup has failed.
In areas along the Thai border, EAOs are working together, providing basic services to the population. That way one is showing what a future Myanmar, in which different groups will work together instead of fighting each other, looks like.
In sum
With Myanmar’s future at stake, external pressure on the military and support for the resistance could be the deciding factor in the course of the conflict. The international community can and must do more to help the Myanmar people establish a federal democracy.
It should begin significantly increasing efforts to address the worsening humanitarian crisis, increasing pressure on the illegal junta through coordinated sanctions and arms embargoes, and recognizing the NUG as the legitimate authority in Myanmar.
The NUG, as well as the aligned EAOs, should be provided with funding and capacity building programs in governance and federalism. But urgent action is needed because, as Khin Ohmar, Myanmar activist and chairwoman of the Progressive Voice, said at one of the IPI hearings: “Time is not on our side”.
The countries and international institutions that claim to support democracy in Myanmar must act urgently. If they are serious about helping the Myanmar people in their hour of greatest need, they must adopt creative and effective policies to provide support and pave the way for a better future for the country.
Min Aung Hlaing’s junta has failed to take control of the country, but pro-democracy forces cannot drive the military out of Myanmar’s political life on their own. The forces fighting for federal democracy need all the help they can get from allies in the global community.
Recommendations
The International Parliamentary Inquiry (IPI) makes a number of recommendations that focus on the urgent need to increase humanitarian assistance to Myanmar, to urge neighboring countries (notably Thailand, India and Bangladesh) to provide more cross-border humanitarian aid and to work as much as possible directly with local, community-based aid groups, and not with the junta.
Pressure on the junta must also be increased, through coordinated and genuinely impactful sanctions. For instance, by calling on governments that have not yet sanctioned the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), especially the United States, to do so as soon as possible.
At the same time, Myanmar’s pro-democracy forces – including the NUG and ethnic organizations– should be recognized and given the political and financial support they need. The NUG and EAOs should start negotiating a future settlement for a federal democracy in Myanmar.
The NUG should also be encouraged to unconditionally restore Rohingya citizenship and accept the return of those who have sought refuge in Bangladesh over the years.
One should acknowledge that the five-point consensus has failed and that Min Aung Hlaing’s junta is not a reliable partner. ASEAN must abandon the five-point consensus in its current form and negotiate a new agreement on the crisis in Myanmar with the NUG, local civil society organizations (CSOs) and representatives of ethnic armed organizations (EAOs).
Jan Servaes was UNESCO-Chair in Communication for Sustainable Social Change at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He taught ‘international communication’ in Australia, Belgium, China, Hong Kong, the US, Netherlands and Thailand, in addition to short-term projects at about 120 universities in 55 countries. He is editor of the 2020 Handbook on Communication for Development and Social Change.https://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1007/978-981-10-7035-8
This is an opinion editorial by James Collins, a financial professional with experience in various asset classes.
As I sit here writing this piece, I search for the words to best describe my thoughts on the present state of the world. I couldn’t seem to find words to express my vantage point until I landed on Clockwork Orange. Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 dystopian crime thriller, “A Clockwork Orange,” presents ranging views of individualism and freewill to authoritarianism and force. The parallels between some people’s idea that we are headed toward a global totalitarian state known as the “Great Reset” and the intense level of response to the blatant use of force by The State and power in numbers expressed in the counterforce of the “Great Awakening” fit firmly in the scripting of “A Clockwork Orange.” We have a heightened global awareness of these buzz words like Great Reset and Great Awakening, but what I believe is the best descriptor of these connected, yet conflicting, ideas of global magnitude is the “Great Confusion.”
The Great Confusion stems from an underlying absence of the inverse, which is clarity. I believe if we as humans desire to grow as a species, we must sync to a global baseline level of objective truth or 100% clarity.
“Bitcoin, Clockwork Orange” is my musing on how clarity through money removes us from the “Great Confusion.”
To find clarity, we must sync to a global baseline of objective truth. What can we use as the baseline? It must be something that everyone can agree on, regardless of spoken language and geographical location, like mathematics and physics. Whether in the United States or El Salvador, two plus two will always equal four, and there is no place on earth where humans can jump off a building and fly; gravity will win. These objective truths are the perfect baseline for humans to build upon as a strong base layer.
“Mathematics is the base layer of language” — @FossGregFoss
On January 3, 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto released a decentralized system of peer-to-peer electronic cash in the form of Bitcoin, and that has changed our world forever, giving humanity clarity in the form of money. The Bitcoin network and its unit of account, bitcoin, flips upside down everything we once knew about finance. The time-value of money is the core principle of finance — that money today is worth more than money tomorrow. The current time-value of money only exists because a central authority can alter the volume of currency within an economic system at any time. Due to the central control of money creation, the saying is that governments can always print more money to handle their debts, so they have a risk-free rate. This risk-free rate is the base rate added when layering other risk factors when analyzing an investment in other bonds or equities. A central authority’s ability to alter the underlying money supply and affect these rates means they can affect everything in an economy and completely distort price signals. If looked at through its most sinister lens, controlled issuance of money supply in traditional finance is how central authorities keep their population on the road to serfdom; people work exponentially more onerous for a currency growing exponentially weaker, thereby being robbed of their time expressed through destroyed purchasing power.
“Finance is the time value of money. Bitcoin is the monetary value of time.” — @Lisa_Hough_
Satoshi Nakamoto solved the ills associated with time theft through currency debasement by discovering absolute scarcity using technologies that leverage the objective truth of mathematics and physics to back a natively digital supply by time itself, the only absolutely scarce asset we possess. Paraphrasing the work outlined in Chapter 2, Bitcoin is Time in Gigi’s “21 Lessons,” the Bitcoin Network is a decentralized timestamping server that uses asymmetric cryptography to create causality in cyberspace. Those causal events (known data needed to create a hash of that known data which is linked to the next block) link together by giving them meaning through entropy or the randomness, in the form of no one in a decentralized system knowing who is going to win the next block reward and which transaction will be hashed into a block to create the particular Merkel root defining a point in time that resembles an absolute now in the digital realm. Discovering a method of determining the “now” or “time” in a decentralized adversarial system is what allowed Satoshi Nakamoto to solve the centralization of time-keeping of the ledger to prevent double spending, as well as definable “time” in cyberspace, which is necessary for the determination of “when” transactions occurred.
(Bitcoin is simply a transaction-based ledger where the transactions are the spreading of ownership of the units of time encapsulated in bits called satoshis by signing continuous digital signatures to this append-only distributed timestamp server). The entropy of asymmetric cryptography creates an irreversible arrow of this “now” time, creating a legitimate past, present and unknown future. As mentioned, the objective truth of physics also comes into play through the unpredictability expressed through the same asymmetric cryptography in mathematics applied to the physical exertion of energy within proof-of-work consensus to solve the cryptographic puzzle, therefore emitting more bitcoin into circulation. Proof-of-work is essential to the underlying value of bitcoin because it runs physical computation, the only native form of energy transfer in the digital realm with no way to cheat it. Through an asymmetric cryptographic function, proof-of-work creates a scenario where the time taken to brute force the answer over the almost nonexistent time to verify the findings is expressed via computationally time-derived bits.
Finally, Nakamoto utilized the difficulty adjustment in block height or Bitcoin’s native clock to connect this computational work of time-exertion back to our physical world by using a cryptanalytically stable problem, allowing for a speed limit on the time expressed between our physical world (an average 10-minute block time) and the digital realm (a difficulty adjustment every 2016 blocks). The finality of this time-derived speed limit connecting our physical world to the digital world allows the absolutely scarce hard-cap of 21 million bitcoin expressed in the Bitcoin Core source code to be upheld.
No matter how much energy or computation you throw at the network, you can not speed up the emission schedule, and more energy does not mean more bitcoin; bitcoins underlying value is not computation through energy intensity but computation through energy exertion measuring the time asymmetry made possible through one-way cryptography.
“When you have scarcity in money, you have abundance in everything else.” — @JeffBooth
In conclusion, humanity is in the midst of the Great Confusion — some people think we are headed towards a Great Reset while others believe we are in a Great Awakening — and some don’t care. This lack of focus and attention is due to overwhelming noise and misdirection.
The signal we are looking for can be found at the depths of our oldest social structure, money, which has now been transformed through objective truth in mathematics and physics into the perfect signal. Bitcoin leverages that perfection to invert everything we know about finance and money. Satoshi Nakamoto used objective truth in mathematics and physics to bridge a synthetic digital time and space to our physical time and space in a decentralized manner allowing for coordination of when an absolute volume of costly unforgeable bits of digital time interlock with our physical efforts of computation.
The discovery of absolute mathematical scarcity with an intrinsic value of inescapable costliness in the real physical world linked to the heartbeat of a synthetic time in block height controlled by the cryptanalytic stability of the difficulty adjustment, a physical world time-based adjustment, is the most crucial discovery in monetary application of all time. Bitcoin is the unstoppable march of time-derived money wrapped in mathematics and physics, defining a pure price signal. Tick tock next block.
This is a guest post by James Collins. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
This is an opinion editorial by Jacob Kozhipatt, a YouTuber and writer.
For the uninitiated, The Silk Road was a darknet marketplace where users bought and sold all manner of products, including those considered illegal — most often drugs.
Supporters argued that the Silk Road leveraged technology to create markets necessarily divorced from the corruption of governments and big banks. For critics, the marketplace was an enemy of The State, that facilitated the sale of illegal substances that decimated countless lives.
For Bitcoiners, however, the marketplace was the first example of bitcoin being used as an actual currency — a mixed legacy as the website popularized the alternative currency, but also created a stigma surrounding digital currencies that lasts even today. So what exactly was Silk Road, and why did it play such an important role for bitcoin?
What Was The Silk Road?
The Silk Road was created and run by Ross Ulbricht. He created the marketplace in 2011 as a manifestation of his libertarian philosophy, rooted in the ideas of Austrian economists like Ludwig von Mises. Ulbricht believed that governments inherently utilize force to impede an individual’s sovereignty — a sentiment he believed manifested in the United States’ War on Drugs.
Ulbricht believed the American War on Drugs cost American taxpayers billions of dollars and was a greater instigator of violence than drugs themselves.
Ulbricht alluded to Silk Road and his motivation for creating it on his Linkedin profile, writing he sought to create an economic simulation that would show the governed first hand how to live in a world without, what he describes as, “the use of excessive force.”
It is important to note that the Silk Road explicitly forbade the sale of products or services, “who’s purpose is to harm or defraud,” e.g., child pornography, weapons grade plutonium or stolen credit cards. The U.S. government, though, reported that hacking services were available on the website.
An intriguing aspect of Silk Road was the professionalism it took in presenting its illicit substances/services. While the drug trade is notorious for violence and the selling of fake drugs, the Silk Road let dealers sell their products through the mail and let buyers know if the product they bought was coming from a legitimate seller, as the Silk Road employed a seller review system akin to other e-commerce sites like Ebay or Amazon. While some were fans of this, others like New York Senator Chuck Shumer, were outraged at the seemingly causal nature of buying drugs through the platform.
In October of 2013, Silk Road was shut down. At this time, the website had over 100,000 users and had thousands of transactions, amounting to tens of millions of dollars exchanged, every day. Ross Ulbricht was soon convicted of seven crimes and received a life sentence in prison, without the option for parole.
Bitcoin And The Silk Road
Central to Silk Road was the concept of buyers and sellers hiding their identities. Two technologies served as the marketplace’s agents of anonymity: the software Tor, and the cryptocurrency bitcoin.
Users would utilize a Tor browser to access the dark web, where their IP addresses, amongst other digital locators, would be hidden from third-party surveillance.
While hiding one’s digital address was important, it didn’t solve the problem of transacting anonymously. One’s identity could still be discovered through mainstream centralized payment processors, like Visa and Mastercard, who both work with the government to identify users engaged with illegal activities. This is where bitcoin played an important role.
At this time, bitcoin was still a nascent technology with few knowing the forensic accountability that the blockchain provides. Thus, bitcoin served as a means of exchange on Silk Road. Tens-of-thousands of users would exchange millions of dollars in bitcoin to purchase items on Silk Road.
When Silk Road was shut down, 70,000 bitcoin (now worth: $1.3 billion) was seized from the website. A Vocative report detailed the volume of sales of drugs that had occurred on Silk Road: Marijuana transactions totaled more than $46 million on Silk Road, while heroin sales were worth about $8.9 million; cocaine amounted to $17.4 million.
Impact Of The Silk Road
The story of Silk Road has lasting effects on bitcoin and the greater cryptocurrency landscape.
Silk Road was the first example of bitcoin’s ability to be used as an actual currency — a true financial facilitator of exchange between individual parties. Silk Road collected revenues of roughly 9.5 million bitcoin since 2011, a jaw-dropping amount as only 11.75 million bitcoin existed at the time. In other terms, 80% of all bitcoin in existence went through Silk Road at the time it was shut down. Within two hours of the news of Ulbricht’s arrest becoming public, the price of bitcoin tumbled from $140 to $110.
To this day, Silk Road is often used as an argument by cryptocurrency critics to show that bitcoin is primarily used as a facilitator of crime. This is best demonstrated through New York’s steep regulations, specifically the BitLicense, which was set in place in 2014, shortly after the conviction of Ulbricht. Senator Schumer specifically called out Bitcoin for its use on Silk Road stating: “[Bitcoin is] An online form of money laundering used to disguise the source of money, and to disguise who’s both selling and buying the drug.” This reputation has proven to be a lasting one, as Duke professor and former Federal Reserve regulator Lee Reiners as recently as 2021 argued that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies should be banned for their use in facilitating crime.
Obviously, bitcoin bulls, like Tim Draper, vehemently disagree with this perspective. They argue that bitcoin’s immutable ledger actually makes it easier for the government to track criminal activity done via bitcoin. For example, the $4.5 billion hackers of Bitfinex, Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, aka the “crocodile of Wall Street,” were outed to government officials while trying to launder their stolen bitcoin because of their blockchain transaction history. Moreover, many new cryptocurrencies market themselves anonymous alternatives to bitcoin, arguing the first cryptocurrency’s privacy components are insufficient.
Many bitcoin believers view Ross as a hero for the movement and actively campaign for his release in a movement called “Free Ross,” run by Ulbricht’s mother, Lyn. Lyn Ulbricht mentions that the national perspective on drugs has changed since the conviction of Ulbricht. Marijuana, the most popular drug sold on Silk Road, is more normalized in modern Western society. U.S. President Joe Biden recently announced that all federal marijuana convictions would be overturned by the government, and urged legislatures to reconsider the federal perspective towards marijuana.
It is often people on the fringes of a society that first adopt new ideas and technologies. Many of the early 2000’s YouTube content creators, like Jeffrey Starr or Lucas Cruikshank, were members of the LGBTQ community. In Chinua Achebe’s famed novel, “Things Fall Apart,” the first members of the Igbo Tribe to convert to the then-novel idea of Christianity were the disaffected misanthropes of the tribe. Similarly, the first people to popularize bitcoin were — for better or worse — drug dealers and users who inarguably are on the fringe of our society.
This is a guest post by Jacob Kozhipatt. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
With time running out, the meeting in Egypt will mark the moment when we start to see if the pledges made at COP26 in Glasgow, are being met. Credit: Shutterstock
Opinion by Felix Dodds, Chris Spence (new york)
Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Nov 03 (IPS) – Her recent announcement that she will not attend COP27 is understandable, but we still hope she’ll reconsider. By Prof. Felix Dodds and Chris Spence.So, Greta Thunberg won’t be coming to COP27. She’s condemned it as “greenwashing” and cast doubts on the host’s human rights record and lack of access for activists.
To be clear, we have nothing but admiration for what Greta Thunberg has accomplished as far as increasing the pressure on our political leaders to do more. We agree with her completely that a lot more is needed, and fast.
But when it comes to COP27, we hope she’ll change her mind. We have three reasons for this: the impact of diplomacy, the urgency of the situation, and COP27’s role convening people with power and influence.
Diplomacy works
While Greta Thunberg is right that many international events are mostly “blah, blah, blah,” the United Nations negotiations on climate change have achieved a lot more than many people realize. Prior to the Paris Climate agreement in 2015, for instance, we were on a trajectory of 4-6 degrees Celsius rise in temperature by the end of the century. Now, estimates suggest we’re on track for somewhere around 2.4-2.8 C, if current pledges are met. While this would be a terrible scenario to have to face, it would be less apocalyptic than those higher numbers.
As we have pointed out in a previous article, international negotiations on climate change have had a profound impact already, kickstarting the shift away from two centuries of fossil fuel dependence and giving us at least a chance of achieving sustainability in the longer term. Just days ago, the International Energy Agency forecast that global emissions will peak in 2025 before beginning to fall. Furthermore, they see all types of fossil fuels “peaking or hitting a plateau” then, too.
Do we wish this had happened sooner? Absolutely. But it shows progress is being made. Besides, there is no alternative to an international process when it comes to dealing with a global problem of this magnitude. No country, company, or coalition, can solve this problem alone. We all need to work together.
Urgency means everyone joining the fight
We agree wholeheartedly with Ms. Thunberg’s exhortation for everyone to “mobilize” and be involved in solving this challenge. Many folks may choose to be activists or advocates for change, pressuring their home governments to be more ambitious, taking action locally, or changing their habits as consumers or investors. Thunberg is also quite right that time is running out; the science tells us the window of opportunity to restrict warming to 1.5C or less is closing rapidly.
Yet this is exactly why COP27 is so important. With time running out, the meeting in Egypt will mark the moment where we start to see if the pledges made at COP26 in Glasgow, are being met. Is the global community sticking to its promises or falling short? COP27 will give us an opportunity to review, press for greater urgency, and draw global attention to those who are keeping their promises and those who are not.
The decision at COP26 to not wait for 5 years until governments submit improved National Determined Contributions, but to ask all countries to update their NDCs by COP27, is also important.
A total of 39 Parties have communicated new or updated NDCs since COP26, including critical countries such as Australia and India. This is clearly not enough, but it is a start. The same request should be made at COP27, pressuring countries to review their NDCs in time for COP28.
Influencing the powerful
Finally, UN climate summits present a once-a-year opportunity to engage with powerful politicians and urge decisions on the climate threat. With time so short, no one who can influence the process should stay away.
Greta Thunberg has already had an outsized influence inspiring people to action and persuading politicians to take the issue more seriously. Her presence at COP27 would undoubtedly make a difference.
One reason she has given for not attending is her concern that civil society representation may be less this time around, and she doesn’t want to take someone else’s place. This is thoughtful. However, Greta Thunberg has access to leaders’ others may not. Her presence could have a significant impact.
For these reasons, we hope Ms. Thunberg will reconsider and use her influence to its fullest at COP27. As we write this, it appears that another powerful figure who had earlier ruled out attending may be changing their mind.
New British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, had initially also said he wouldn’t attend, citing the country’s financial and energy challenges and urgent budget planning as the reason for staying home.
However, he has now had a change of heart. The public response to his initial decision, as well as concerns from industry and civil society, made the Prime Minister reconsiders his position. This is welcome news and, we believe, the right decision.
If Rishi Sunak wishes to build on the UK’s solid performance at COP26 and burnish his country’s reputation for taking climate change seriously, we hope he attends with not just positive rhetoric, but new commitments and financing. It would be a positive signal if King Charles also attended.
After all, the UK is still the President of the COP until the start of COP27. Missing the next COP would not have sent the right message to the UK’s partners and the global community in general.
With no other realistic way to solve climate change than the multilateral system, we urge Greta Thunberg to follow Rishi Sunak’s lead and join the gathering. In fact, all of those in positions of power or influence should come to Sharm ready to work for the best agreement possible. As John F. Kennedy said. “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate”.
Prof. Felix Dodds and Chris Spence have participated in UN environmental negotiations since the 1990s. They co-edited Heroes of Environmental Diplomacy: Profiles in Courage (Routledge, 2022), which examines the roles of individuals in inspiring environmental change.
How good is a company’s chief executive officer at investing your money most efficiently? This is an important question for long-term investors. It may underline the difference between a steady long-term performer and a flash in the pan.
And Apple Inc. AAPL, -4.24%
now makes up 7% of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY, -1.03%,
the first and largest exchange-traded fund (with $360 billion in assets), which tracks the benchmark S&P 500 SPX, -1.06%.
That’s close to an all-time record, and the iPhone maker has a whopping 14.1% position in the Invesco QQQ Trust QQQ, -1.95%,
which tracks the Nasdaq-100 Index NDX, -1.98%.
Looking at the full Nasdaq Index COMP, -1.73%,
which has 3,747 stocks, Apple takes a 13.5% position.
Apple now makes up 7.3% of the S&P 500 by market capitalization, close to the 8% record it set late in September.
FactSet
This is very much an Apple stock market, with the company topping the broad indexes that are weighted by market capitalization. You are likely to be invested in the company indirectly. You also might be feeling Apple’s impact in other ways. Apple’s App Store ecosystem drives more than $600 billion in annual revenue for developers.
Tim Cook’s tenure as Apple’s CEO has been nothing short of breathtaking when measured by the company’s financial performance. Apple is not one of the fastest-growing companies when measured by sales or earnings — it is too big for that. But its excellent stock performance has reflected Cook’s ability to deploy invested capital with improving efficiency. Cook has also been a market trendsetter in other important ways. He has Apple repurchasing $90 billion of its shares annually, setting the pace for stock buybacks in the market. Cook’s steady hand has also helped Apple withstand the market’s tech wreck and remain a stable pillar for the teetering Nasdaq Composite index generally. For all these reasons, Cook has earned a spot on the MarketWatch 50 list of the most influential people in markets.
Apple keeps improving by this important measure
Investors in the stock market are looking for growth over the long term. The best measure of that is whether or not a company’s share price goes up or down. But Cook isn’t just managing Apple’s stock. Digging a bit deeper into the company’s actual operating performance can provide some insight into what a good job Cook has done.
What should a corporate manager focus on? The stock price? How about the most efficient and most profitable way to provide goods and services? There are different ways to do this, and Apple has focused on quality, reliability and excellent service to build customer loyalty.
Apple’s commitment can be experienced by anyone who calls the company for customer service. It is easy to get through to a well-trained representative who will solve your problem. How many companies can say that at a time when it seems many companies cannot even handle answering the phone?
Apple’s returns on invested capital have increased markedly over the past six years.
FactSet
A company’s return on invested capital (ROIC) is its profit divided by the sum of the carrying value of its common stock, preferred stock, long-term debt and capitalized lease obligations. ROIC indicates how well a company has made use of the money it has raised to run its business. It is an annualized figure, but available quarterly, as used in the chart above.
The carrying value of a company’s stock may be a lot lower than its current market capitalization. The company may have issued most of its shares long ago at a much lower share price than the current one. If a company has issued shares recently or at relatively high prices, its ROIC will be lower.
A company with a high ROIC is likely either to have a relatively low level of long-term debt or to have made efficient use of the borrowed money.
Among companies in the S&P 500 that have been around for at least 10 years, Apple placed within the top 20 for average ROIC for the previous 40 reported fiscal quarters as of Sept. 1.
As you can see on the chart, Apple’s ROIC has improved dramatically over the past five years, even as the wide adoption of the company’s products and services has led to an overall slowdown in sales growth.
A quick comparison with other giants in the benchmark index
It might be interesting to see how Apple stacks up among other large companies, in part because some businesses are more capital-intensive than others. For example, over the past four quarters, Apple’s ROIC has averaged 52.9%, while the average for the S&P 500 has been a weighted 12.1%, by FactSet’s estimate.
Here are the 10 companies in the S&P 500 reporting the highest annual sales for their most recent full fiscal years, with a comparison of average ROIC over the past 40 reported quarters:
Among the largest 10 companies in the S&P 500 by annual sales, Apple takes the top ranking for average ROIC over the past 10 years, while ranking second for total return behind UnitedHealth Group Inc. UNH, +0.03%
and ahead of Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, -3.06%.
UnitedHealth has been able to remain at the forefront of managed care during the period of transition for healthcare in the U.S., in the wake of President Barack Obama’s signing of the Affordable Care Act into law in 2010.
Here’s a chart showing 10-year total returns for Apple, UnitedHealth Group, Amazon and the S&P 500:
FactSet
Apple is only slightly ahead of Amazon’s 10-year total return. But what is so striking about this chart is the volatility. Apple has had a smoother ride. During the bear market of 2022, Apple’s stock has declined 18%, while the S&P 500 has gone down 20%, the Nasdaq has fallen 32% (all with dividends reinvested) and Amazon has dropped 45%.
The broad indexes would have fared even worse so far this year without Apple.
This is an opinion editorial by Jacob Kozhipatt, a YouTuber and writer.
The phrase “October Surprise” is used in politics to describe a last minute, paradigm-shifting event that occurs a month before an American election. For example, in 2016, the FBI reopened their investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server, an event which many argue led to her loss in the 2020 election. In 2020, then-president Donald Trump contracted COVID-19, just weeks before the November election.
Bitcoin markets are in need of a shakeup. 2022 has been a tough year for the price of bitcoin. Right now, bitcoin sits ~65% below its price just one year ago, a far cry from the six-figure price prediction that models like “stock-to-flow” and long-time bulls, like Tim Draper, predicted.
Some hope that the appointment of England’s new cryptocurrency-friendly Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, could be a major positive change. Sunak, considered by many to be an ally of innovation, declared a year ago that he wished that the United Kingdom would become a “global hub for crypto-asset technology.”
Can Rishi Sunak’s election be the necessary “October Surprise” to push bitcoin forward?
Bitcoin Regulation In 2022
One of the most important questions going forward with bitcoin is: How should governments regulate it?
So far, the United States is a mixed bag. While some legislators — like Senator Cynthia Lummis — are pushing for bitcoin-friendly regulation, others like Senator Elizabeth Warren are pushing for far more critical legislation.
While the perspective of the American federal government on bitcoin is currently being debated, right now many states already have anti-bitcoin laws in place. For example, the financial capital of the United States, New York, has the most stringent rules against cryptocurrency due to its BitLicense. The existence of the BitLicense means that bitcoin enthusiasts are prevented from taking part in many innovations. Even mayor-elect Eric Adams had to resort to alternative, costlier means to get his first three months salary paid in bitcoin.
Many investors, like Shark Tanks’ Kevin O’Leary, argue that this uncertainty of regulation is causing many to avoid the space. This is where Sunak could be a game changer.
Why Rishi Sunak Is Good For Bitcoin
The United Kingdom’s new prime minister Rishi Sunak can be seen as an ally for bitcoin. Sunak’s youth and Stanford pedigree make many feel as though he is open to new technologies — especially one as lucrative as bitcoin. As Finance Minister, Sunak pushed for tangible pro-cryptocurrency legislation. He supported the “Financial Services And Markets Bill,” which, according to Coindesk, is widely seen as cryptocurrency-friendly, as it pushed for increased acceptance of stablecoins.
Moreover, there are competitive advantages for Sunak embracing cryptocurrency. The established laws in America in tandem with the uncertainty towards future laws, means many in the world’s largest English speaking country are looking for alternatives. This is where England could capitalize.
The bitcoin community is digitally nomadic in nature — as seen by the migration of enthusiasts to locations like Malta and Portugal. If Sunak were to create incentives for bitcoin companies to move to places like London it could siphon capital and talent away from America.
Finally, with the United Kingdom’s growing deficit problem, the nation desperately needs outside-the-box type solutions. Nothing would be more outside of the box than for Sunak to make London the bitcoin capital of the world.
Why Rishi Sunak Could Be Bad For Bitcoin
While many Bitcoin fans are excited for Sunak’s leadership, some express concern about the authenticity of his support for cryptocurrency.
Many point out that Sunak’s wealth and pedigreed education makes him part of the “establishment,” and innately against the rebellious and alternative nature of bitcoin. A prominent YouTuber, Wendy O, compared him to SEC Chair Gary Gensler. Gensler, who taught courses on digital currencies at MIT, was originally seen as pro-cryptocurrency. However, since his appointment, Gensler has frequently criticized the space and urged for increased investor protections.
Sunak’s support of central bank digital currencies (CBDC) also troubles Bitcoiners. People like Matthew Kratter, of the popular show Trader University, argue that CBDCs symbolize everything that is wrong with government money. For Kratter, the CBDC’s are inherently centralized and encourage state surveillance of individuals’ finances — something many Bitcoiners see as going directly against the ideals of bitcoin. Kratter went so far as to call Sunak’s vision for a U.K. CBDC a “spycoin.”
Will Bitcoin’s Price Go Up?
Sunak entered office at a time of unprecedented financial hardship in the United Kingdom. With an ever increasing deficit, the weakening of the pound, a cost of living crisis and widening wealth gap, it might be safe to assume that bitcoin and cryptocurrency aren’t at the top of his agenda.
While we cannot predict his relationship with bitcoin, it should be noted that just the idea of a pro-bitcoin prime minister could be enough to spike the asset’s price.
At this early stage, it is impossible to predict how Sunak will directly impact the price of bitcoin, but as of now his background shows him to be an ally to the oft-maligned industry.
This is a guest post by Jacob Kozhipatt. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
There are over 8,500 coal power plants in the world, with over 2,100 GWs of capacity. These plants generate about 10 gigatons of CO2 emissions per year, nearly 30% of the global total. Credit: Bigstock
Opinion by Philippe Benoit, Chandra Shekhar Sinha (washington dc)
Inter Press Service
WASHINGTON DC, Nov 02 (IPS) – Report after report highlights that we can only achieve the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions required by the climate goals of the Paris Agreement if much of the existing coal power generation capacity is retired early. To this end, one concept that deserves greater consideration is conducting an auction for early retirement of coal power plants worldwide: a global coal retirement auction. This article sets out the broad outlines of how this global auction might operate.
Accordingly, climate/development organizations, like the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the World Bank, the IEA and RMI, are exploring programs to effect the early retirement of these coal plants.
But closing these plants presents two important challenges. First, retiring these plants removes electricity production that many countries rely upon for their economic development … production that would need to be replaced with preferably low-carbon sources. Second, owners are generally unwilling to shutter revenue-generating plants and want financial compensation for the returns they would forego from the premature retirement of their asset. This article addresses this second constraint.
There are various regulatory mechanisms that can be used to push early retirement, such as mandating closure of plants or imposing a carbon tax or other cost that makes operating the plant uneconomic.
But what’s a fair price? Perhaps, however, that’s not the right question. Rather, at what price are the owners willing to shutter their plants? Given that there are more than 8,500 coal power plants operating with different technical and revenue characteristics, and over 2,000 plant owners in diverse financial situations following distinctive corporate strategies (including numerous state-owned enterprises), the answer will vary.
A technique that has been used in this type of context of multiple actors is an “auction”. While in the traditional context, a seller looks to get the highest price from multiple possible buyers through an auction, in this case, we have a buyer that is interested in paying the lowest price to different plant owners (i.e., the sellers) for the retirement of their coal plants.
The reverse auction mechanism could be used to solicit proposals from coal power plant owners as to the price at which they would be willing to close their plant. Conceptually, this could be done on the basis of MWs of installed power generation capacity. Under the auction, an interested coal plant owner would offer to sell — more specifically, to shutter — their MWs of plant capacity by a fixed time at a proposed price.
Importantly, the climate benefit sought by the auction is not from the decommissioning of MWs of capacity itself, but rather from the GHG emissions that would be avoided by retiring that capacity. Accordingly, for any coal retirement tender, it will be necessary to estimate the level of emissions that would be avoided.
This determination will be based on several factors, including the particular plant’s efficiency, remaining operational life and other technical characteristics, the type of coal used, and the amount of electricity production projected to be foregone through early retirement given the power system’s expected demand for electricity from that plant.
Tenders should include sufficient information to evaluate these items and, by extension, the level of avoided emissions and related climate benefit to be produced from the proposed retirement. This, in turn, will drive how much the auction buyer should be willing to pay for the tender.
Moreover, because it would be largely counter-productive from a climate perspective to pay to retire existing coal plants to see that money used directly (or indirectly) to build new fossil fuel generation, the tender by the plant owner would need to be accompanied by an undertaking not to reinvest in new fossil fuel generation.
As has been repeatedly explained, CO2 emissions have a global impact that is essentially unaffected by the geographic location of the emitting plant. Given this global nature of emissions, the auction would likewise be conducted at a worldwide level as a global auction. From India to Indonesia, from South Africa to South Korea, from Poland to Australia, any plant anywhere would be eligible to participate in the global auction.
Given this scope, an international organization like the United Nations or a multilateral development bank would be well positioned to provide the platform for this auction. One could imagine a system where the auction bidding process sets out eligibility criteria for projects, the methodology for estimating GHG emission reductions, and other key bid-submission parameters.
Significantly, while the bidding process would be managed on an integrated basis, the funding and selection of winners need not be. Rather, a system that allows for the matching of interested coal retirement buyers with individual plant owners could be used.
For example, buyers and their funding could be mobilized on a plant-by-plant basis based on information submitted by the plant owner through the auction process. Indeed, many potential funders have areas of focus that could lead them to be attracted to retiring coal assets only in certain countries (e.g., funders interested in a targeted set of developing countries). The proposed auction structure could accommodate these preferences. Moreover, the global auction could also operate in association with country-specific approaches.
One potential source of funding for coal retirements tendered under the auction is the potentially large amounts of capital to be mobilized through expanded carbon credit mechanisms under development. Tapping into these mechanisms might require establishing defined project eligibility criteria, frameworks for calculating GHG emissions reductions, and associated monitoring and verification systems to enable payments for emission reductions at the time of decommissioning based on a price for emission reduction (“carbon”) credits.
It is also important to recall the first constraint noted earlier, namely that countries, and particularly developing countries, will need more electricity to power further economic and social development. Accordingly, any global auction to retire coal plants needs to be coupled with a program to fund new renewables electricity generation.
Climate change is a global challenge affected by GHG emissions from anywhere. We need to reduce emissions from coal power generation and that requires some program to encourage and entice owners to shutter their plants. A global auction, conducted by the United Nations or a similar international organization, would help to identify opportunities where willing plant owners and interested funders can make a deal.
Philippe Benoit has over 20 years working on international energy, finance and development issues, including management positions at the World Bank and the International Energy Agency. He is currently research director at Global Infrastructure Analytics and Sustainability 2050.
Chandra Shekhar Sinha is an Adviser in the Climate Change Group at the World Bank and works on climate and carbon finance. He previously worked at JPMorgan, TERI-India, UNDP, and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Andrew Anderson, Executive Director of Front Line Defenders opens the Dublin Platform at Dublin Castle on 26 October 2022. Credit: Kamil Krawczak for Front Line Defenders
Opinion by Andrew Anderson (dublin, ireland)
Inter Press Service
DUBLIN, Ireland, Nov 02 (IPS) – Before she was murdered in Honduras in 2016, the Lenca Indigenous woman and human rights defender Berta Cáceres poignantly said: “They are afraid of us because we are not afraid of them.”
It is a measure of the continued effectiveness of human rights defenders around the world that autocrats, bigots and powerful economic interests continue to invest significant resources to try and silence them or disrupt their work.
Sophisticated surveillance, brutal violence, expensive smear campaigns, significant time and energy from security services and police forces, endless judicial proceedings, new restrictive laws – the efforts of the oppressors pay a kind of tribute to the courage, tenacity and impact of human rights defenders.
Whilst human rights academics debate the relevance of a weakened UN system, the reality on the ground, in countless countries across all regions, is that communities continue to mobilize around a struggle framed in rights.
Sudan’s revolution united under the banner of “freedom, peace and justice,” while “women, life, freedom,” has become the slogan of the protests in Iran. And as Sonia Guajajara, head of the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (ABIP), said at the UN Climate Conference, “if there is no protection of indigenous territories and rights, there will also be no solution to the climate crisis, because we are part of that solution.”
The human rights defenders we work with every day at Front Line Defenders are an inspiration to all of us.
Liah Ghazanfar Jawad continues to work to support women and women’s rights in Afghanistan under brutal Taliban rule even though she has the option to be with her family outside the country.
Andrew Anderson, Executive Director of Front Line Defenders opens the Dublin Platform at Dublin Castle on 26 October 2022. Credit: Kamil Krawczak for Front Line DefendersObert Masaraure and Robson Chere of the Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe choose to continue their struggle even as they are detained, ill-treated and released. And many human rights defenders continue, in spite of the bombings and missile strikes, to document war crimes and provide support to victims in Ukraine.
As Diana Berg, artist and human rights defender from Donetsk, told a packed conference room in Dublin, Ireland last week, “until I get killed by a Russian Iranian drone I will help survivors deported teenagers and evacuate museums.”
The first Dublin Platform for Human Rights Defenders took place just over 20 years ago in January 2002. Our visionary founder, Mary Lawlor – now the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders – was determined that the organization would be driven by the needs expressed by defenders themselves. With a tiny team she worked wonders to bring over 100 human rights defenders to that launch of Front Line Defenders.
Two decades later, providing rapid and practical support for the protection of human rights defenders at a global level remains the core focus of the organization’s work. In 2021, for the first time we provided more than 1,000 grants to human rights defenders in 105 countries.
We are committed to the struggle. Our work is built on our profound respect for human rights defenders; for their work, their courage and their knowledge. We stand with them, and will provide support in every way that we can.
At the recently finished 11th Dublin Platform, we convened more than 100 at-risk human rights defenders from scores of countries for three days in iconic Dublin Castle. Among many other issues, we discussed how authoritarian regimes use counter-terrorism and security laws to target human rights defenders, the backlash against feminists and LGBTIQ+ human rights defenders, and the role of human rights defenders in the context of protests and social movements.
As we gathered in Dublin, we were acutely aware of those human rights defenders who were not with us. In 2016 we helped to set up a HRD Memorial Project to gather information on the cases of defenders who are targeted and killed because of their human rights work; to illustrate the scale of the phenomenon, to emphasize the systematic nature of these attacks, and to provide a space to pay tribute.
Following on from this, we worked with the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs to create a HRD Memorial monument in Dublin – a unique space where we recently held a poignant candlelight vigil to commemorate the hundreds of human rights defenders who have been killed while carrying out their peaceful work.
There are also many human rights defenders we would like to have welcomed to Dublin but whose governments prevented them from being there. These include long-term imprisoned human rights defenders such as Narges Mohhamadi in Iran, Dawit Isaac in Eritrea, Maria Rabkova in Belarus, Tr?n Hu?nh Duy Th?c in Vietnam, Pablo López Alavez in Mexico and Ilham Tohti in China.
In particular I want to highlight my friend and former colleague Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, who was abducted, tortured and sentenced to life in prison after a sham trial over 11 years ago. We continue to work for Abdulhadi’s release and for the release of all human rights defenders who are in prison.
The Iranian woman human rights defender Atena Daemi – also unable to be with us in Dublin because of the ongoing protests in Iran – nonetheless shared a powerful message about her motivation in dark times: “Humanity is our common love and fight. Human rights is the goal of all of us. It is the ultimate human joy and freedom and happiness.”
Such strength of conviction is what motivates us at Front Line Defenders to continue to protect and support human rights defenders worldwide and stand with them in their struggle against oppression.
Andrew Anderson is Executive Director of Front Line Defenders
Urgent immediate actions must be taken now, both to address the crisis in the short-term and long-term. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS
Opinion by Esther Ngumbi (urbana, illinois, usa)
Inter Press Service
URBANA, Illinois, USA, Nov 02 (IPS) – The statistics are stark. The crisis is unprecedented. Yet again, according to the United Nations, famine looms in Somalia, with hundreds of thousands already facing starvation. In addition, droughts, and catastrophic hunger levels have left over 500,000 children malnourished and at risk of dying. This is already nearly 200,000 more than the 2011 famine. Urgent immediate actions must be taken now, both to address the crisis in the short-term and long-term.
Circumstances have been building up for the last four years to create this current crisis. Rainy seasons have failed for the last four years which has left many farmers without livestock or crops. Further, compounding the impact is the fact that the drought has coincided with a global rise in food, fuel, and fertilizer prices, the Ukrainian war, and the COVID-19 global pandemic.
The future isn’t promising either. According to the World Meteorological Organization, the forecasts reveal high chances of drier-than-average conditions in the horn of Africa. Other issues that are likely to persist in the future include food crises, civil war, and political instability.
Not only can the famine lead to untimely deaths, but hunger can affect people in other ways, particularly children. A recent systematic review and meta-analysis demonstrated that malnutrition was linked with cognitive development. In Ethiopia, a recent systematic review and meta-analysis demonstrated that malnutrition affected the academic performance of elementary school children. Another review also linked malnutrition with impaired brain development.
In a study that compared children of average nutrition with their malnourished peers, it was shown that malnourished children had lower IQs, lower school performance and less cognitive functioning. Left unchecked, malnutrition can be far-reaching and have a devastating and incalculable impact on children’s future potential.
What can be done differently now and in the coming years?
Immediately, there is need for humanitarian aid. Thankfully, organizations including the UN World Food Programme (UN-WFP), UNICEF and other NGOs are doing everything they can to provide food to the people that are suffering the most. UN-WFP, for example is delivering life-saving food and cash assistance. UNICEF is delivering ready-to-use therapeutic foods to treat children with severe acute malnutrition. It has also deployed mobile teams to find and treat children with severe malnutrition.
But, as we have repeatedly seen, providing aid is like putting on a band-aid. It is a temporary fix. Often, the international community and stakeholders react to crises in this way. After many years- it should be clear that short fixes in the form of humanitarian aid, including bursts of cash and food assistance to those most affected, are unsustainable.
Clearly, given how often drought and famine are issues, fixing the hunger crisis at the horn of Africa will require much more than emergency aid. Stakeholders must also roll out long-term solutions. For each dollar spent on humanitarian aid, 50 cents should go to long term solutions. For example, the UNICEF appeals for US$222.3 million dollars to provide humanitarian services to 2.5 million people in Somalia. Out of the entire amount, half of that should go to long-term projects that solve the root causes of hunger.
Undoubtedly, droughts are recurrent because of failed rainy seasons. There is need to roll out water projects to meet the water needs of growing crops for food for the impacted communities and their livestock. It is a no brainer. Just like the gas stations in America and other developed nations are present in every corner, there should be water stations every 10 or 20 miles.
This would be water sourced from aquifers and underground sources. Half of the funds received by the UN agencies, for example, could go towards actualizing this bold effort of drilling these water stations across Somalia. For example, out of the $222.3 million UNICEF is asking for, $111, should go to drilling water in Somalia.
With water, Somalia and other African countries that consistently are impacted by recurrent droughts, can diversify the crops they produce. More importantly, they can be able to implement climate smart practices and other local solutions.
Simultaneously, as water projects are rolled out, African countries including Somalia need to have clear, systematic, and holistic plans of how to solve climate linked extremes including drought, extreme temperatures, frequent insect outbreaks that are inextricably linked.
Planning should go hand in hand with strong documentation of what was done, how it was done, and how successful or unsuccessful it was in solving the crisis. At the moment, Somalia and other African countries lack accountability and transparency about what initiatives and strategies are implemented following early warnings. We will never make headways into solving these recurring crises, if we are not documenting what has been done, what worked and what failed.
Importantly, like any other crises, there is need to keep thinking of new solutions to roll out. As such, think tanks – that draw from in-country experts, diaspora, public, private, NGO and other stakeholder coalitions – need to research concrete strategies that can be implemented, tracked, and scaled.
We must invest in long-term solutions if we are to solve once and for all the recurrent drought, hunger and famines in Somalia and other African countries. Investing in long-term initiatives will not only solve hunger, but it will also reignite sustainable development and bring prosperity to communities. It is a win for all.
Dr. Esther Ngumbi is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and a Senior Food Security Fellow with the Aspen Institute, New Voices.
This is an opinion editorial by Ansel Lindner, an economist, author, investor, Bitcoin specialist and host of “Fed Watch.”
Ghost money has a long history but only recently became part of the bitcoin vernacular via premier eurodollar expert, and bitcoin skeptic, Jeff Snider, Chief Strategist at Atlas Financial. We’ve interviewed him twice for the Bitcoin Magazine podcast “Fed Watch” — you can listen here and here, where we talked about some of these topics.
In this post, I will define the concept of ghost money, discuss the eurodollar and bitcoin as ghost money, examine currency shortages and their role in monetary evolution, and finally, place bitcoin in its place among currencies.
What Is Ghost Money?
Ghost money is an abstracted ideal currency unit, used primarily as a unit of account and medium of exchange, but whose store-of-value function is a derivative of a base money. Other terms for ghost money include: political money, quasi-money, imaginary money, moneta numeraria or money of account.
To many economic historians the most famous era of ghost money is the Bank of Amsterdam starting in the early 17th century. It was a full reserve bank, used double-entry bookkeeping (shared ledgers) for transactions, and redeemed balances at a fixed amount of silver. Ghost money existed on their books, and the money in their vaults.
The financial innovation of an abstracted ideal currency unit evolved because coins are never the same weight or fineness. Coins in circulation tended to get worn quickly, dented or clipped and even if the coins were in mint condition, sovereigns tended to debase the coins on a regular basis (by the year 1450, European coins only had 5% silver content). Ghost money is a currency abstraction based on a fixed measurement of a money (its store-of-value), but does not need to reference actual coins in circulation, just an official measurement.
To put it in terms Bitcoiners are familiar with, this layer of abstraction gave commodity money new security properties and payment features.
Security wise, ghost money avoids the problem of debasement to a degree (we could call this debasement resistance), because the unit-of-account is a fixed weight and fineness set by a bank, not the sovereign. For example, the Bank of Amsterdam set the guilder at 10.16 g fine silver in 1618. Coins in circulation at the time tended to differ widely, coming from all over Europe. There were even direct attacks on banks in the form of flooding the local economy with debased coins, as happened in the 1630s with the importation of coins of less silver content from Spanish Netherlands north to Amsterdam.
Ghost money also allows new features, like the ability to transact over long distances, in large sums, carrying only a letter, greatly reducing transaction costs. It also allowed longer-term bonds at lower interest rates because the unit-of-account is more stable. The pricing of shares (a new innovation at the time), also could be valued in stable currency units.
In general, ghost money leads to thinking of value in a stable abstract unit. This has far reaching effects that are hard to overstate when it comes to large long-term investments, like massive infrastructure projects, that just so happened to get going in the preindustrial era as well. Eventually, the thinking in stable abstract currency units would lead to all the financial and banking innovation we see today.
Ghost money is rightly thought of as a derivative to the money itself, one which replaced the insecure aspects of the physical coins, without getting rid of the underlying form of money. It would more properly be called “ghost currency,” because it is simply a stable derivative, an idealized currency, used for accounting.
Everything has a trade off, and ghost money is no exception. Abstracting the currency away provided debasement resistance from the sovereign, but it also enabled the banks to more easily create credit denominated in that idealized unit (fractional reserve lending), shifting the money printing task from sovereigns to banks. Expanding credit in the private sector according to market desires can lead to economic booms, but the trade off is the following bust.
Currency Shortages
In an article from Jeff Snider, he pairs the use of ghost money with the concept of monetary shortage to explain the rise of modern banking, and the beginning of the evolutionary process toward the current eurodollar financial system and even bitcoin.
“Any money-of-account [ghost money] alternative is the resourceful yet natural human response to these specific conditions.”
He sees ghost money as a natural market-driven practice, with a primary driving force being monetary shortage. Ghost money can add elasticity to the money supply as I stated above through credit expansion. He points to the 15th century’s Great Bullion Famine and the 1930’s Great Depression as two very important epochs in ghost money’s history. These were periods of inelasticity in the supply of currency, which incentivized efforts to search out new supplies via financial innovation (ghost money) or searching for new sources of money itself (silver and gold in the Age of Exploration and the eurodollar credit expansion in the 1950s and 1960s).
More than anything, though, what might have driven money-of-account forward to its preeminent position was something called the Great Bullion Famine. Just as the 20th century seemed to pivot in one direction then the other, from the deflationary money shortages of the Great Depression to decades later the overwhelming monetary changes underneath the Great Inflation, so, too, did Medieval economics suffer one to then pivot into its opposite.
Ghost money’s Golden Age, forgive the pun, coincided with the Bullion Famine. Quasi-money is often one solution to inelasticity; commercial pressures are not easily surrendered to something like a lack of medium of exchange. People want to do business because business, not money, is real wealth.
“The role of money, separated from any store of value desire, is nothing more than to facilitate such business[.]” — Jeff Snider
Snider frames ghost money as a market tool that happens to also provide a route to increasing the elasticity of money in times of currency shortage. In other words, when the supply of money does not expand at a sufficient rate, the ensuing economic difficulties will drive people to find ways to expand that money supply, and ghost money is a ready-made solution via fractional reserve.
Snider’s views put him squarely in the monetarist camp, along with Milton Friedman and others. They see in “the quantity of money the major source of economic activity and its disruptions.” Inelasticity is both the primary culprit of depression and the primary mover of financial innovation.
The Eurodollar As Ghost Money
“Necessity, basically, the mother of invention even when it comes to money […]But if the eurodollar was the private (global) economy’s response to restrictive gold, what then of the eurodollar’s post-August 2007 restrictions upon the very same? Where’s the ghost money of the 21st century to replace the preeminent ghosts of the 20th?” — Jeff Snider
Snider frames the eurodollar system as a natural innovation response to the inelasticity that prevailed in the Great Depression. In the 1950’s when Robert Triffin began speaking about this paradox, the market was busy solving it through ghost money and credit. The eurodollar system is simply a network of double-entry bookkeeping and balance sheets, using the global idealized currency unit at the time, U.S. dollars (backed by $35/oz of gold).
But is the eurodollar in its current form, still ghost money? No — it is credit-based money, but it looks almost identical.
Remember, ghost money is an idealized unit of money (in the past it was silver or gold). Credit is also denominated an idealized unit-of-account, a second order derivative, if you will. Through the dominance of ghost money, thinking in an abstract currency unit became common, and the psychology of the market changed to center around this new financial tool.
The difference between the current eurodollar, which is a pure credit-based system, and credit in a ghost money system is found in the store-of-value function. Ghost money’s store of value is from a base money (silver or gold or bitcoin). The eurodollar today, on the other hand, is divorced from base money completely, and backed by something new. A dollar today is an idealized measurement of debt denominated in dollars. It’s a circular, self-referential definition in the place of base money:
“Money-of-account [ghost money] was one such alternative which also blurred the lines between money and credit; in one sense, using ledgers to settle transactions even between merchants was under the strictest definition credit rather than a monetary substitute. But that was the case only insofar as eventually this paper IOU would have to be disposed of by bullion or specie.
Subprime mortgages and their ancient equivalents became possible where specie was in overabundance, yet perhaps counterintuitively far less likely if not completely impractical using only ghosts untethered to hard money.” — Jeff Snider
In other words, untethering ghost money from its hard money can simulate the overabundance of money. We are wrong though to continue to call this untethered money, ghost money. What is it a ghost of? Once you remove the store-of-value/hard-money tether, it is now a new form of money.
I also must add that if untethered ghosts can simulate overabundance of currency, it can also simulate a currency shortage at the other extreme, which is exactly what we see today.
The eurodollar started out as ghost money until 1971 when the gold peg was severed, either by market evolution or official declaration. It became a new form of money, pure credit-based money.
Is Bitcoin Ghost Money?
Snider stated that “quasi-money is often one solution to inelasticity,” not that all solutions to inelasticity are quasi-money. Yet, that is what he’s doing when he extrapolates that because bitcoin is providing new monetary liquidity in a time of eurodollar shortage, that bitcoin is ghost money.
Currency shortages can be solved by introducing a whole new money, and as the old money suffers from shortage, the new money, with an all-new store-of-value anchor, can become the primary unit-of-account. This is not a ghost money process, it’s a money replacement process, something the Monetarists’ model cannot contend with.
“This forms the basic argument of so-called Bitcoin maximalists who see particularly the Federal Reserve but really all central banks as having set loose to ‘money printing’ excesses. They’re killing their currencies by creating too much, and cryptos are the offered antidote to ‘devaluation.’ No.It is, point of fact, the opposite.
Just like the bullion famine, what crypto enthusiasts of all kinds are reacting to — and basing their buying of digital currencies on — is the central bank response to an otherwise severe and constraining monetary shortage.” — Jeff Snider
Snider is right. I have to give him props on opening a lot of people’s eyes on this. We do have deflationary pressures today, but bitcoin is a hedge against inflation and deflation as a counterparty-free asset. It just so happens the overriding force in the economic environment today is a deflationary pressure of a credit collapse, which simulates currency shortage. While more quantity but increasingly less productive debt is money printing, meaning there is inflation, it also increases the debt burden relative to circulating currency. It creates a debt-to-income problem that manifests as a monetary shortage.
“Digital ghost money for a new age of shortfalls.” — Jeff Snider
Snider sees bitcoin as a new ghost money, where I see new money. Ghost money is no threat to replace the monetary standard, because it is a derivative of that standard, like stablecoins. U.S. dollar stablecoins will not replace U.S. dollars. They are a perfect example of ghost money.
As Snider said above, quasi-money (ghost money) is only one solution to a currency shortage, yet he labels all solutions as ghost money regardless of makeup.
Snider offers evidence in the form of his eurodollar cycles and their timing with bitcoin cycles.
“In 2017’s bitcoin bubble, exactly the same. Its price in dollars went parabolic along with a clear bubble in digital offshoots, now-forgotten ICO’s, the frenzy never lasted long because the premise behind its price surge was entirely faulty. Once the dollar instead caught its Euro$ #4 bid, renewed acute shortage, bitcoin’s price sunk like a rock.” — Jeff Snider
They do match pretty well with bitcoin tops. Below is the best chart I could find of his with dates. However, many of his other charts have different dates for these cycles.
Pretty convincing, but it shouldn’t be a surprise — demand for bitcoin is a part of the larger global market for money. Bitcoiners would definitely agree. When dollar supply is tight during these eurodollar events, bitcoin loses a bid. However, if bitcoin truly were just a ghost money derivative of the eurodollar, it would not set higher highs and higher lows each cycle.
The reason bitcoin can set those new highs each time is because bitcoin is a new money, and is slowly becoming entrenched next to the eurodollar not as a ghost money of it.
Turning back to the Great Bullion Famine, it was followed by the explosion of ghost money, but what followed that expansion is even more interesting. What happened in the 18th century in regards to ghost money and new money? Britain went to a gold standard in 1717 (officially in 1819). It changed money from which the store-of-value function was derived.
The gold guinea (7.6885 grams of fine gold) was not a new ghost money. As I argued above, the eurodollar itself, initially a response to the currency shortage in the first half of the 20th century, evolved eventually into a new store-of-value in a pure credit-based money.
But what if we bring Snider’s position full circle, when he claims that the eurodollar is still ghost money today, a position gold bugs have argued for years. What if we are still on a quasi-gold standard, because central banks hold most of the gold. (Ron Paul famously asked Ben Bernanke why the Federal Reserve held gold if it was demonetized. His response, “it’s tradition, long-term tradition.”)
This interpretation of the current eurodollar system would then make it a ghost of a ghost, ultimately based on the same store of value. It would also make the current incarnation of the eurodollar just the end-phase of another ghost money experiment, ready to be replaced by a new money, the same way the British gold standard replaced the international silver standard.
Either way you take it, that the current eurodollar is a new money because it is a pure credit-based money, or that it is the ghost of a ghost still connected psychologically to a gold standard, both these positions support one conclusion. The ultimate end of the process Snider outlines — starting from a currency shortage, to dealing with inelasticity through ghost money, and finally back to economic health — is a new form of money.
Bitcoin is a new store of value to undergird the financial system as it desperately tries to throw off the currency shortage restraints at the end of an epic global credit cycle. Bitcoin is not a ghost of the old, it is the unconstrained new.
This is a guest post by Ansel Lindner. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
This is an opinion editorial by Daniel Batten, a Bitcoin ESG analyst, climate tech investor, author and environmental campaigner.
Growing up in the ’70s, our local council tried to put a rubbish tip into our coastal New Zealand community. The whole community came together — not just to fight a common enemy (and win), but to discover the power of what is possible as part of a grassroots movement, which is impossible alone. In years to come most of that community, including myself, would go on to become voices for humanitarian and climate justice.
Starting young, my first environmental action at age four. From Thursday Magazine, 1974.
Fast forward to October 2022: I would never have imagined I would be part of a community of environmentalists defending the environment against Greenpeace USA.
A period of intensive data analysis six months earlier had led me to the inescapable conclusion that Bitcoin was a net positive to the environment, but powerful forces were at work to hoodwink the world’s environmentally-minded through a seemingly orchestrated misinformation campaign. The misinformation was strong enough that I initially fell for it myself.
“Bitcoin uses too much energy,” has become the new “immigrants are taking our jobs”: the incantation of vested interests and the hoodwinked who, wittingly or unwittingly, stoke the fires of populism with sound bites over sound analysis.
What we are seeing is not new.
We saw the tobacco industry influence medical opinion for many years about the safety of smoking. We saw the print media criticize the environmental credentials of the internet, predicting it would cause coal factories to fire up worldwide. Today, it’s unsurprising that central banks that want their central bank digital currencies (CDBCs) to be the future of digital currency, not Bitcoin (which disintermediates central banks), should happily fan the fires of doubt about Bitcoin using environmental credentials as its attack vector.
In this historical context, it is no surprise that Ripple’s executive chair Chris Larsen, among others, paid $5 million to launch a Greenpeace USA campaign attacking Bitcoin’s energy use. And Ripple is not just another altcoin, it is launching its own CDBC pilot project. CBDCs and Bitcoin represent fundamentally-competing visions for our digital currency future.
Nor should we be surprised that seemingly no mainstream journalist has publicly questioned either Larsen or Greenpeace about an evident conflict of interest.
But despite the money, the compassionate pass from mainstream media and a well-trained in-house media team that did its best to neuro-associate Bitcoin with stock video footage of climate catastrophe, Greenpeace USA’s campaign did not go well.
The “Change The Code” campaign actually energized and galvanized strong environmentalist voices within the Bitcoin community including Troy Cross, Margot Paez, Adam Wright and others.
It motivated podcasters such as Bitcoin Archive, Pomp and Crypto Birb who had not previously examined the environmental benefits of Bitcoin to start doing so.
It was also the catalytic moment that took me from being a read-only Twitter user, to becoming one more outspoken voice for the environmental merits of Bitcoin.
Greenpeace USA had the opportunity for a strategic retreat, but it did not take it.
On Greenpeace USA’s Twitter feed, a horde of Bitcoiners weighed in with data and fact, mercilessly counter-attacking Greenpeace’s campaign for what they perceived as its misinformation, ignorance, questionable ethics, lack of science, use of psyop-style messaging and inability to see how thoroughly it had been played by central bankers.
Remarkably few of Greenpeace USA’s own 218,000 followers, nor any other branches of Greenpeace internationally came to its aid. And Greenpeace USA wasn’t just repeatedly ratioed. It was honey badgered. Lyn Alden’s commentary on Troy Cross’ reply to a Greenpeace USA tweet captures the extent of the backfire:
Source: Twitter
No other branch of Greenpeace seems to have retweeted any of the “Change The Code” campaign since September.
Organizers set up a Change The Code Twitter handle which spent many months limping to 1,300 twitter followers — 80% of whom seem to be Bitcoiners based on their profile descriptions.
With the clockwork relentlessness of an oil pumpjack, the account continues to grind out near-daily anti-Bitcoin sound bites, only to see nearly every tweet ratioed by about 20:1 by the community.
It has proven a valuable resource for Bitcoiners. Not only is it very useful to see all the misinformation cataloged in one place but, more importantly, each time a tweet is ratioed, it allows Bitcoiners to educate themselves and others in the community about how to counter Bitcoin misinformation.
Far from turning more people against Bitcoin, the campaign has served only to draw attention to Greenpeace USA’s departure from grassroots funding while providing a forum for Bitcoiners to demonstrate the weakness of the anti-Bitcoin case once mainstream media was no longer there to insulate the attacker from a horde of highly-informed Bitcoiners.
Willy Woo calculated the campaign lost for Greenpeace at a minimum of $7.1 million in subscriptions worldwide. The brand and reputational damage will likely have been much more, and take much longer to recover from.
While outwardly Greenpeace USA will shrug shoulders and say “Well, you always lose some supporters on direct action campaigns, and Bitcoiners are vocal on Twitter,” behind closed doors its executive management will be asking “What went wrong?” in what has been an unprecedented social media catastrophe.
So, Why Did The ‘Change The Code’ Campaign Perform Badly?
The first foreboding signs came one year earlier. In the only level playing-field debate on if Bitcoin is a threat to the environment — a predominantly anti-Bitcoin general audience swung 17.9% to become predominantly pro-Bitcoin after just one hour of hearing for the first time not just a central banker’s narrative, but a Bitcoiner’s right of reply, according to a calculation of voters from the user forum on the video itself.
Plus 17.9% is a swing of gargantuan proportions.
The second alarm bell for Greenpeace USA was much closer to home. Greenpeace’s base is 18 to 34 year olds: This age group is twice as likely to think climate change poses a serious threat. What Greenpeace USA seemed not to realize until it was too late was that 18 to 34 year olds are also almost twice as likely to hold bitcoin as the rest of the general population.
The third alarm bell should have been that these 18 to 34 year olds are the least likely to trust mainstream media. Meaning: Greenpeace USA’s base was the least likely to have believed the highly-skewed narrative about Bitcoin propagated through mainstream news channels.
Greenpeace USA completely miscalculated what would happen in forums where the “Bitcoin can be good for the environment” case could not be censored the way it had been throughout mainstream media outlets.
Greenpeace’s direct action campaigns typically target large corporations with something to hide. Greenpeace USA also miscalculated what would happen when it took on a grassroots movement founded on the values of consensus and transparency, which had nothing to hide, and an untold story to tell.
It miscalculated how Bitcoiners would unite together to defend an attack from an environmental goliath that they perceived to have compromised its integrity by taking private money from a conflicted billionaire to fund their campaign.
But it also perhaps miscalculated how unsympathetic its 18-to-34-year-old base would be to its anti-Bitcoin narrative. For when the ratios came thick and fast on Twitter, its base did not defend it.
That vacuum allowed Bitcoin Twitter to do the job that mainstream media once did: hold an organization to account for taking funding from an apparently conflicted source.
What positives can Greenpeace USA take away from this campaign? Well if its intention was to…
Galvanize the Bitcoin environmental movement and create new leaders within it
Provide a forum where Bitcoiners can educate and inform its base about the environmental benefits of Bitcoin
Highlight a tactical error from its executive management team to its supporters
…then its campaign has been a resounding success.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Even before the extra $1 million from Ripple was paid to amplify Greenpeace USA’s message directly after the Ethereum merge, Cross warned the Bitcoin community in July that more pressure would come on Bitcoin post-merge.
It seemed the antagonists of Bitcoin were expecting this to be the turning of the tide, where they triumphantly cried, “Ethereum has proven it can do the right thing for the environment, now it’s Bitcoin’s turn” to a choir of cheerleaders.
They did not expect the reply: “Bitcoin is now the only major cryptocurrency that can become an emission negative network.” Nor did they expect the supporting data, showing that 7 megawatts (MW) of vented-methane-based mining per month is all it takes to make the whole Bitcoin network emission negative by December 2024, a monthly rate already surpassed using flared methane power.
Compiled by the author
As for Bitcioners, we can celebrate this moment. It is not the final battle. Not even close. The opponents of Bitcoin will re-gather stronger. We can expect new missiles of misinformation, new angles of attack vectors through the curatable channels of mainstream media and political influence that have worked for them to date.
But they have also learned that in an open forum where the right of reply cannot be censored, the truth will shine: social media is one stadium where they cannot win.
If Greenpeace USA introspects deeply, it will realize that we are on the same team: Bitcoin is a reflection of its own core values, not just a financial sovereignty movement, but a human rights movement and an environmental movement. It is a movement built on Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision of peer-to-peer solidarity, returning power to the people algorithmically through the proof-of-work consensus mechanism, while disintermediating the unelected financial elites who, by virtue of wealth or position, can make decisions that are bad for the people and widen wealth inequality.
Bitcoin cannot fix the environment. Only people can do that. But Bitcoin was created to help the people, and that spirit of its founder lives on in everyone who is behind it.
The environmentalists within the Bitcoin community are growing rapidly, in number and in valor. Just like that coastal community of the ’70s, each attack on what we hold dear serves only to energize and galvanize us, creating new leaders who will go on to become irrepressible voices for humanitarian and climate justice.
This is a guest post by Daniel Batten. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
