Bitcoin is the New Non-Aligned Movement

This is an opinion editorial by Enza Coin, a Dubai-based Bitcoin-focused investor and content creator.

For those few of you who are from the former Yugoslavia, you will be closely familiar with the global cause known as the Non-Aligned Movement.  Its name and concepts were embedded in the root of the country as the founding member of the cause. Under Josip Broz (aka “Tito”), it brought together diverse and far-reaching nations that included Yugoslavia, Egypt, India, and Indonesia among others under its umbrella.

In the minds of people, it was less a formal entity aiming to impose thoughts and decisions on others and more of a decentralized band of common believers.  It was far from the likes of the current day World Economic Forum (WEF), United Nations or European Union that serve as the nemesis of many Bitcoiners.

Rather than trying to centralize thought under one of the sides of the then-polarized world, the Non-Aligned Movement tried to offer a Third Way.  For the nearly 50-years of the “Cold War“, the world’s battling superpowers aimed to force everyone into one of 2 blocs with the Soviet Union on one end and the United States on the other. 

In Bitcoin lexicon, I would refer to such a world as the choice only between the US dollar or the Euro.  Are either of these a good choice for you?  Perhaps for some, but at core, wouldn’t it be better to be allowed to make your own selection rather than be boxed into only two options?  Think about what happened to the purchasing power of Fiat currencies over the period of the Cold War.

While the Cold War tried to impose a hard choice on countries and individuals, impacting their lives, livelihoods and wealth, the Non-Aligned Movement aimed not to connect with either side. As with the Non-Aligned Movement, let us choose a Third Currency Way. 

Unless you have been hiding in your “prepper” bunker the last decades waiting for “the end”, you will have noticed that while the Cold War ended in 1991 and global leaders in the West have since been uneasy without a clear villain to take sides against so allow for the continued funding of their military-industrial complex.  

If you are a Silent Generationer or Boomer reading this article you may have witnessed the speech first-hand, but for the rest of us Bitcoiners I can only paraphrase for you that US President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about the increasing power of the military-industrial complex during his farewell address on 17 January 1961.

Using Fiat gains, post-Cold War Western leaders searched for a new enemy. The West needed a new adversary to again create a two-sided bloc like in the “good old” Cold War days.  Do I need to name names in that search? Okay, fine, I will. There was the man in Baghdad, the one in the mountains of Afghanistan, the one in the oil-rich deserts of Northern Africa, and the other one in the oil-rich jungles of northern Latin America just to cite a few. However, none would fully satisfy the Fiat printing bloodlust until the world experienced the rise of China.

The economic and superpower rise of China over the last 20-years plus allowed the creation of a new blockchain. Sorry, I mean bloc. I have “Bitcoin” on my mind.  With China, again the West, I mean US could aim to lasso the world into its bloc and not the other one.  Old style politicians again found their “raison d'être“.  The world was yet again black and white and ripe for the Fiat money-printer gone wild. 

The modern Cold War transformed into an economic one, a financial one, a technological one, a currency one. The global economic dominance of the US was questioned as was the role of the US dollar. How could a place that simply produced cheap clothing, ThighMasters (ex. Suzanne Somers) and Christmas decorations now become a GDP rival? 

Well, if I could read the minds of the Men-in-Black, I mean those who run the Fed, the US Treasury, the Bank of England or the European Central Bank, it is certain that they concluded that even if China was a strong economic rival, as long as the currency of choice remained the US dollar, then the power in the bifurcated world remained with the West.

With this in mind, the Western master began to impose the most comprehensive and far-reaching set of explicit and implicit controls over anyone who touched or even dreamed of the Greenback.  “Where did you get your six-hundred and twenty-seven dollars and eighty-seven cents from?”  “Why do you need to withdraw one-thousand seven-hundred and sixty-six dollars in cash?” “Bring your birth certificate, 4 sets of fingerprints, 10 years of tax returns, and a blood sample back tomorrow and maybe we will give you your cash back so that you can make a payment for your daughter’s medical bills.”

FATCA, CRS, BSA, and CTR became household acronyms.  “Dear, can you please pay for Grandma’s hip replacement?”  “No, sorry, the bank said my FATCA did not conform to my CRS and therefore BSA will not accept my CTR.” 

The new polarized world existed to force a choice on people, to force the use of the US dollar and the Western financial system or else risk having your wealth held hostage, being frozen or even confiscated unless a person found a way to make a payment for their kibbles using the Chinese Yuan.

At this point my mind wanders to the axiom articulated by Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd President of the United States.

I might also ponder if Mr. Jefferson, who postulated such wisdom, would be pleased to have his image imposed on the 2-dollar bill.

I also find interest in highlighting that his appointment of Albert Gallatin as the 4th Secretary of the Treasury back in 1802 brought a Swiss-born financial wizard into the highest fold of the future economic superpower.  Yes, the birthplace of the Secretary was in the Confederation Helvetia.  A place that was to become the source of such future deep pain for the US Treasury itself a mere 200 years in the future with its, now-lost, tax haven and banking secrecy manifestos.

The bifurcated world today is not a type of Ying-Yang where the two blocs must exist to create a balance.  Rather, the world at present is where the two blocs are at constant friction, burning at the points they touch and grinding every one of us in between. The Arm’s Race became the money-printing race.

Yet, what old-time Cold Warriors and modern-day money printers didn’t envision being sparked from between the grinding blocs of friction acting as flint was the creation of Bitcoin.  

Bitcoin is the new rendering of the Non-Aligned Movement. Arm the public with control over their own monetary system and a “Third Way” is born.  Neither Ying or Yang, neither East or West, neither Red or Blue.  The old movement was led by the Populares. The new movement is led by the likes of cool President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, the enigmatic Satoshi Nakamoto, and the “soft-spoken” Max Keiser.  There is always room for more in our Monetary Non-Aligned Movement should the chainsaw-wielding Bitcoin-hair-styled President Javier Milei of Argentina or other plebeians have interest.  Please feel free to contact me for an application form.

In an interview of President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador by Tucker Carlson in November 2022 he said he wanted to provide El Salvadorans with an “alternative system”.  I will interpret this as meaning a “Third Way” and further venture to call it a new “Non-Aligned Movement“…….a ‘Monetary Non-Aligned Movement“.

As we moved from the arms race to the printing press race, we must now venture to end categorizing the world into blocs advancing only selected economic groups. No doubling-down, no imposed biased choices, no concept that “you’ll own nothing and be happy”.

Bitcoiners talk about choosing an alternative path with self-sovereignty.  When posed to make a choice between “A” or “B”, they aim for “F” and “U”, if I express it as politely as possible.  The new elements of power are not gained by forced association but by self-reliance and self-determination, all the makings of a true “Non-Aligned Movement“, a ‘Monetary Non-Aligned Movement“.  And, I dare to add that you need to choose your path wisely or one will be chosen for you, and it will not be Bitcoin!