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@ Marty Bent
2025-06-18 04:25:57Marty's Bent
via Dr. Eli David
The case for a neutral, permissionless monetary protocol has never been stronger. The incumbent financial system is a permissioned wall garden that is susceptible to a tax. When you're using this system, you don't own your money. Your money doesn't really even exist. What you have is a claim to be able to ask your bank to give you your money or move it somewhere that you desire. Not only is it a permissioned wall garden, but it is an insecure permissioned wall garden that is susceptible to attacks from nefarious actors.
This was made very clear earlier today when Sepah Bank in Iran was the subject of a cyber attack that led to all of its databases being erased and their ATMs being deemed non-functional. Sepah Bank customers have been unable to withdraw cash. And many are warning Iranian citizens to withdraw as much cash as possible from any ATM outside of Sepah Bank's network that is working. Because there is a high likelihood that other banks and ATM networks will be targeted.
Bitcoin is a digital bearer instrument that you can custody yourself using either a software or hardware wallet. The network is operated by an army of geographically distributed nodes that maintain the rules and ensure that anybody trying to transact within the network is doing so within the rules that are set forth. Bitcoin is a push system, not a pull system. It is extremely hard to attack in the way that Sepah Bank was attacked earlier today.
I think it's important to note the way in which Sepah Bank was attacked and highlight that it is starkly different from the types of attacks or shortcomings from the financial system that we've seen over the years.
One of the events that caused a rush to Bitcoin over a decade ago was the banking crisis in Cyprus. We've seen hyperinflationary events in countries like Lebanon and Turkey that have rendered their currencies defunct. In the case of Lebanon, the central bank simply came out and said that people were not going to have access to their money and gave Lebanese citizens an overnight haircut on their savings. We've seen countries like India and Nigeria mess with their physical bills, forcing their citizens to exchange smaller denominations for larger denominations, causing massive disruptions in the process.
We've seen the United States government and its allies freeze the treasury assets of its enemies and they move towards a more multipolar monetary order over the last five years. We've seen the Canadian government freeze the bank accounts of protesters fighting for bodily autonomy. We've seen Operation Chokepoint 1.0 and 2.0. Here in the United States, the government directly targeted industries and businesses within those industries by either overtly preventing them from accessing bank accounts or covertly making it as hard as possible to access bank accounts.
On top of all this, obviously, we have the constant drumbeat of currency debasement across the world, even here in the United States, where the Federal Reserve and Federal Government are expanding the monetary base and going further into debt, ultimately destroying the purchasing power of the dollar at an increasing rate over time.
However, this type of cyber attack on a bank is unique, at least from what I can recall. The ability of nefarious actors to access bank databases and erase them is something new and something that should not be taken lightly. If Iranian hacking capabilities are as sufficient and capable as we are led to believe, it's not hard to imagine that we could see some retaliatory actions from the Iranian regime to counteract the attack on their banking system.
I don't want to incite alarm in any of you, but I think it is important to highlight that this new attack vector is definitely a step towards financial nihilism that could put hundreds of millions, if not billions of people in harm's way, in the sense that they could wake up one morning and be told that the bank does not have access to the records of their cuck buck IOUs. If something like this were to happen, I'm sure anyone who isn't holding Bitcoin in a wallet that they control will really wish they were. Being able to access your money is a vital part of being able to live you life. The thought of that ability being taken away because of a hacking war that breaks out is extremely unnerving.
As I said at the top of this letter, the case for a neutral, permissionless, distributed monetary system with a native currency that is finite is clearer than it ever has been, at least for me. It is imperative that you and anyone that you care about holds Bitcoin in self-custody to inoculate yourselves from these very real risks that are only going to increase from here on out.
Eliminate the trusted third party risks that exist in your life. Use Bitcoin as your money and use it correctly by holding it in self-custody.
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> "It's not just what the rate we get to, it's how fast we get there." - Mel Mattison
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