6/24/17: ANDY HOFFMAN - WHY BITCOIN IS SO IMPORTANT TO HUMANITY

As a 15-year veteran of the monetary wars - on all imaginable fronts - few people have as much knowledge, experience, and skin in the game. Personally, I have been invested in Precious Metals since 2002. Professionally, I worked from 2006-11 in the mining industry. And since 2011, I have served as Marketing Director of Miles Franklin, one of the nation's oldest, most trusted bullion dealers. I have been publicly writing about the virtues of Precious Metals - and the U.S. government-led manipulation that suppresses their prices - for more than a dozen years; and consequently, have become one of the world's most well known "monetary freedom fighters." Through my FREE daily blog at milesfranklin.com, I put every ounce of my energy into spreading the truth of monetary history; the destruction today's governments and Central banks (often, the same entity) are doing to "money" today; and what must occur if the monetary future is to be saved, for the world's 7.4 billion people.

Given that governments have destroyed "gold standards" as viciously as the 1,000-plus fiat currency standards they have hyper-inflated, I long ago surmised that a new "gold standard" is no longer possible. As this time around, after the monetary destruction wrought by this, history's largest, most destructive fiat Ponzi scheme, will be so enormous, no government and/or Central bank will EVER be trusted to issue and/or administer "money"; which I put in quotes, as fiat currency - especially the 180-plus that are NOT the world's "reserve currency" - could not be further from what defines money. In other words, any system CENTRALIZED around a self-serving government - and the "crony capitalists" funding it - is doomed to fail, as has been the case in every such instance throughout history.

Because gold and silver are as close to defining "money" as anything man has ever known, many would love to see another gold standard. However, for the reason cited above; and equally important, it's lack of practicality when it comes to actually transacting in gold and silver, there's no way that can ever again occur. To the contrary, Precious Metals' main historic "use case" is the storage of value throughout generations - and given that to date, no other substance, natural or man-made, has been able to match them, I can't see this changing in our lifetimes. Today, there are far more people than ever before - whilst gold and silver supply has never been lower, when considering rising demand, plunging mine supply, and historically low above ground, available for sale inventories. Combine this with historically suppressed prices - to the point that the mining industry is in shambles, and the downside of holding them is infinitesimal, compared to the upside several millennia of track record suggests.

Thus, even when the "gold Cartel" (i.e., U.S. government-led suppression team) is inevitably broken, it doesn't mean we'll be any closer to "solving" the world's monetary problems. This is why the idea of SDR's is comical - as the last thing the world wants is an even more centralized, "global money." Frankly, I think it would go over as well as a Bitmain-led, hard-forked "China Coin."

Which brings me to the main point of this post. Which is, that without a technologically unassailable, immutable, DECENTRALIZED currency, humanity has no chance of advancing its cumulative condition. Historically, the fiat currency is only rivaled by religious oppression in terms of how much damage it has caused - and now that religious oppression is making a comeback - via the rising Christian versus Moslem paradigm; at the same time that Central banks are hyperinflating like never before (and will continue to do so, at an accelerating pace), humanity has NEVER needed something to "work" more than Bitcoin. No demagogues can save us now (Donald Trump, really?); no "policy decisions"; and certainly, not the product of collusion by a handful of self-serving, printing press armed, "99%" elites. No, we need to take back the world from them - and from my perspective, particularly as someone fighting said "currency wars" for 15 years, Bitcoin is our ONLY hope, for the foreseeable future.

For the past 18 months, I have espoused my very strong belief that not only is Bitcoin taking on monetary properties in the same manner as Precious Metals, but it truly has the potential to be a true monetary standard in the not-to-distant future, which CANNOT be hyperinflated, CANNOT be "handed out" to crony capitalists, and CANNOT be "managed" by governments or Central bankers. Yes, they'll fight Bitcoin's rise to the death, but ultimately they'll fail - like Don Quixote flailing at windmills.

That said, I have far more fear of the still very high degree of centralization that appears to still remain - as frankly, the concept of the vast majority of the Bitcoin community wanting SegWit - easily, well above 90% of it - but not being able to activate it due to the arbitrary whims of a handful of Chinese miners (for the most part, ONE Chinese miner) is as unfathomable as it is maddening. I mean, EVERYONE knows this is the right thing to do - not just for the price, which might be 2x its current value if SegWit were activated, but for Bitcoin's very viability. Let's face it, the uncertainty a hard fork would create would be as damaging to Bitcoin's reputation as anything imaginable - and yet, for some unknown reasons, Bitmain, a company which that will profit as much from a soaring Bitcoin prices as any other, is attempting to prevent it. Aided, no less, by a man who pretends to care about humanity, but is unquestionably, through his association with such "bad actors," significantly damaging it's ability to survive and thrive.

Unfortunately, I know no more than anyone else how all this will play out - but idealistically, I like to believe the greater good, and will, of humanity will win out. I.e., with one Bitcoin and maximum decentralization; and consequently, the ability to freely innovate through the collaborative efforts of millions of people throughout the world - ALL of whom, desire more than anything else, that Bitcoin can, like Precious Metals, reliably store value throughout generations. If it happens to be the king of micro-transactions as well, that would simply be icing on the cake. However, there is NO WAY that can happen unless it first proves itself to be a reliable store of value - which, if SegWit is enacted, WITHOUT a hard fork, will reinforce in a MAJOR way.

Until then - and "then" may well play out before the end of 2017 - please do everything in your power to learn of, and subsequently spread - TRUTH regarding the Bitcoin scaling debate. If resolved the way it SHOULD, humanity will benefit greatly; potentially, for generations to come. However, if will of a handful of elitist, power hungry "bad actors" are able to create "Bitcoin" in their own image, humanity will have had one of its worst defeats of our lifetimes. Hopefully, Bitcoin is powerful enough to fight through the posturing, and respond with a result that benefits the majority. If not, I fear that crypto-currency, as a whole, will be set back for years to come.