I NEVER knew that to address cryptocurrency and its latent peril we have to observe and analyse the animal kingdom for comparison and analogy. The first animal we have to observe and study is the weasel.
It is fascinating to know that the small and cute weasels have a unique dance; weasel war dance. The weasels in the wild use the dance to confuse or disorient their prey with wacky twisting, hopping and darting around to distract, confuse, or even hypnotise the prey animals. Researchers concluded that a number of rabbits “died of fright” after being subjected to the weasel war dance.
Tiny weasels have been seen killing and carrying off animals twice; four times and even 10 times their size. For the sake of analogy later, we also need to know there are some animals which are categorised as cryptids.
Cryptid is an animal that has been claimed to exist but never proven to exist. In other words the animals whose existence or survival is disputed or unsubstantiated (such as the Sasquatch or the Loch Ness monster).
Back to cryptocurrency, the world was confused and speechless when in 2009, the early cryptocurrency appeared claiming to be the first decentralised digital person-to-person cryptocurrency and a revolution in global currency and financial markets, created by an anonymous programmer known only as Satoshi Nakomoto.
No one knows the true identity of Nakamoto — or if it is more than one person. Very cryptid indeed! And now suddenly we have more than 13,000 different cryptocurrencies are being traded publicly. They are many others but they also practise the elusive movement and tactics adopted from the very beginning.
They fascinated the public with pseudo-scientific, catchy, twisted words like decentralisation, transparency, flexibility, currency of the future, and a plethora of jargons like: sharding, full node, blockchain, fork, non-fungible tokens, cold wallet, etc.
But every breathing, sober and intelligent person knows that the cryptocurrency business is no different than gambling and harmful to national security and economic health. Certainly, they do not use the word “gamble” in their narrative. Instead, they use high-risk investment with great potential to get huge profit in the future.
Just like the typical gambling houses, the winners are always the organisations who manage the games. Based on database as of Oct 22, these are the 10 largest trading cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation:
- Bitcoin (US$1.2 tril)
- Ethereum (US$485.2 bil)
- Binance Coin (US$82 bil)
- Cardano (US$71.7 bil)
- Tether (US$69.6 bil)
- Solana (US$64.2 bil)
- XRP (US$51.8 bil)
- Polkadot (US$45.1 bil)
- USD Coin (US$32.4 bil)
- Dogecoin (US$32.2 bil)
The circulation of this huge amount of money is not being supervised by central banks or executive branch of Government. In essence, cryptocurrency activity removes central banks from managing and controlling money supply and “magically” replaces them with imaginary money.
Unbelievably, it works!
Using jargons to cheat the gullible
People are mesmerised and dumbfounded (remember the weasel war dance) even though now cryptocurrency has usurped the role of official currency and changed the protocols of traditional and legitimate financial credo and tenets.
Before the arrival of cryptocurrency, we thought the issuance of money can only be implemented by a sovereign nation with respectable legislative, executive and judicative bodies while supported by a formidable army and all their terrific branches.
And the founders of cryptocurrency realised they are engaging in illegal activities, which is why they prefer to stay invisible and untraceable. But why only a handful of countries had banned cryptocurrency? To name a few; Nigeria, Bolivia, Vietnam, Turkey, Qatar, Ecuador, Morocco, Egypt, Russia, Bangladesh and China.
In a nutshell, cryptocurrency business is purely and blatantly speculative. For example, while Bitcoin traded at close to US$20,000 in December 2017, its value then dropped to as low as about US$3,200 a year later.
This price volatility creates a conundrum proving cryptocurrency is not viable as a fiat currency but their uncontrolled, bullish and excessive manoeuvre seems unstoppable. Everybody keeps silent when cryptocurrency acts no different from any other legal money in terms of its practical application.
Just like fiat money, they now try to insist themselves as a way to move money to pay for goods or services, bills, cash out from digital currencies to fiat currencies, etc.
This condition should remind us of the frogs story. Frogs are a very common metaphor for the inability to recognise catastrophic risk when it happens slowly and incrementally, even though we would respond decisively if it were to happen all at once.
Even though cryptocurrency is notorious for price volatility and lack of inherent value, and since nobody had levelled emphatic and vehement statements against them or limit their influences, now they try to link cryptocurrency value directly to tangible and intangible assets.
One should wonder why they are allowed to uphold secrecy in their activities while the conventional and normal business must follow Government procedures.
Government action needed
As human beings and actors of civilisation, historically proven, we cannot totally eliminate illegal activities. However, cryptocurrency is a different “villain”; it undermines the sovereignty and foundation of a nation.
Cryptocurrency is actually similar with the elusive moray eels who cowardly hide in the nooks and crannies at the bottom of the ocean and only speculatively catch its prey when the latter naively swim adjacent enough to their murky territory.
Since cryptocurrency will always be shrouded in secrecy and underhanded dealings, the only way to fight them is to lure them into daylight and clear an open space. Just declare that cryptocurrency is illegal and the Government will fight them to protect the uninformed general masses.
Give jailtime or close bank accounts of those found using cryptocurrency exchanges. Ban all institutions or organisations dealing with it or mete out heavy penalties on anyone making crypto transactions.
A sovereign nation must know that a small number of individuals or groups should bow down to the greater mass or legitimate Government. We should not imitate the duped countries who are deceived by modernity and uncontrolled freedom.
A sober country should not allow its rich citizens to wield the power to dictate and sway the financial condition of their country. Similarly, a country should not allow their rich citizens to deal with arms or nuclear weapons, and not be allowed to possess too much land.
And rich citizens or industrialists should not be allowed to do business in importing and processing toxic waste and garbage. They may gain huge profits from their enterprise but they jeopardise the lives of the uninformed masses and devalue the dignity of their country. – Dec 26, 2021
Lilia Sinaga is an Indonesian writer and contributor to FocusM.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.