For this there are many brilliant minds that will conscientiously give an account, but assuming that the phrase with which I open this space could have some reason, the only thing I find is that a few have decided, because they can, to harm millions of individuals, both physically and in their assets, which will take years to recover, decades to assimilate the pain and they will never forget, at least I hope so.
A few politicians and business leaders – certainly no more than a hundred – from the Western bloc are shutting down financial vehicles to Russia; the closure is total and indiscriminate; here it doesn’t matter if it’s a company, peasant, family, academic, or whether or not they agree with what Mr. Putin is doing, being a Russian citizen conditions you and they punish you.
Almost a dozen banks have been excluded from using the Swift system; Visa and Mastercard suspended activities in Russia, the ruble has been devalued by almost 70% in a few days and endless etcetera that are causing the loss of heritage and destruction of value without equal.
But much more than describing what we all already know, today I want to think that, as happened with the pandemic, this absurd war will be a technological accelerator that will open the doors to a better world.
The interconnection of all in the hands of a few
The movement of money in the world is in one way or another centralized. If someone wishes to transfer funds from one bank to another in the same country, they must go through the payment system authorized and regulated by the authorities (SPEI in Mexico).
If what is sought is to do the same, but between countries, then the path is similar but the vehicle is global (Swift international). There are two frightening elements here: the first is that a small group of people who work for the regulatory body (SPEI, Swift, etc.) decide who can or cannot use the system; the second is that whoever is authorized or blocked is the institution.
The oligarchy in its splendor
This subtitle means putting in the hands of a few oligarchs the freedom that millions of people should have to safeguard the assets of our families by deciding where, how and when to protect the money that we have lawfully generated. And this is so because we live with a financial system centralized in decision-making, but massified in its consequences:
We, board members of “XYZ” decided to isolate “UVW” bank from the Swift system in retaliation for the war that a few individuals started in Ukraine.
And having pressed this red button, capital is destroyed and the future of tens of thousands of families who neither owe nor fear it is put in suspense; What’s more, they are very likely against what is happening, but with little or no capacity to act accordingly. Those who defend centralism would say: collateral damage.
Crypto, the absent hero who raises the flag of decentralization and fights for individualization
All this that for many of us seems tremendously unfair and today, quite anachronistic, was solved in 2008 with the invention of bitcoin, perfected by Ethereum with smart contracts and made possible through Blockchain.
The technical details and specificities are a matter for another space, but let’s start from the basis that two of the essential elements of crypto assets are decentralization and individualization.