Bitcoin & the Currency Wars with Lyn Alden
“A lot of people take for granted that the current system benefits the US… it basically extends our hegemonic reach, but at the cost of our own domestic vibrancy. There’s a knee jerk reaction for politicians to defend the dollar system, when if they go down the rabbit hole they realise that for maybe 90% of Americans the dollar system is not really working for them anymore.”
— Lyn Alden
Location: New York
Date: Wednesday 8th December
Project: lynalden.com
Role: Macroeconomist
These are strange times. The US Dollar’s established role as the global reserve currency is under threat from competing powers, most notably China. However, at the same time, Bitcoin, a nascent and denigrated decentralized digital asset, has grown so rapidly it is now being seriously considered as a potential competitor to all nation-state currencies.
The dominant international role of the US Dollar wasn’t inevitable; it was the result of deliberate and coordinated efforts to ensure it replaced gold as the backstop for global economic activity. These measures have had relatively short term benefits for some powerful groups within society but at the expense of the cohesion of the US nation-state and geopolitical freedoms.
Inevitably “all pegs break”, and thus, due to various factors, the US dollar is coming under increasing pressure: declining international interest in taking on US debt; increasing geopolitical competition; and domestic fatigue with the unequal societal consequences of having monetary dominance.
Yet, instead of a new nation-state currency replacing the US Dollar, Bitcoin has the potential to be a viable hard money replacement.
The currencies of the world are in flux.
In this interview, I talk to macroeconomist and investment strategist Lyn Alden. We discuss currency wars, positive and negative consequences for the US having a global reserve currency, the consolidation of global currencies and whether Bitcoin can become an alternative reserve currency.
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