I increasingly feel that we are moving towards a strange and necessary future. The world is forming two completely different systems of trust: one based on 'substance', which is gold; and the other supported by 'algorithms', which is bitcoin.
China continues to increase its gold reserves, and this action seems very much like early preparation. Gold does not follow any country, does not need a guarantee from a third party, and its value comes from the accumulation of time and shared human trust. At the same time, the United States is pushing for the regulation of cryptocurrencies, where interactions between capital and regulatory bodies are recurring, and major financial companies are laying out plans. They are trying to make digital currencies a core tool in the new financial system, using new rules to enhance control.
When a country stores physical assets, and another country arranges infrastructure for computing power, the global currency system began to slip. The dollar represented global credit, but today, with rising debts, currency inflation, and a consumption of trust, the system itself is showing signs of fatigue.
Future currencies may be underground, or perhaps in the cloud. Gold remains the most solid means of storing value in the real world, while Bitcoin is gradually gaining a similar status in the digital realm. One represents stability and tradition, while the other symbolizes openness and innovation.
I often think of gold as being tied to past civilizations, while Bitcoin points to a system of the future. As the dollar's credit system begins to collapse, humans look for new anchor points of trust, and these two assets may become new support points.
This transformation is not a distant fantasy, but a transition happening quietly; we are moving from state credit towards consensus credit, from the printing press to computing power and time. Yet most people have not yet realized that they are standing at a historic crossroads.
