May The Best Money Win? How Anti Bitcoin Countries React To Its Expansion

Reynaldo Marquez

1 year ago

3 mins read

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An opposite reaction to the “Bitcoin Law” passed by El Salvador and to its growing adoption was to be expected. Mainstream media has been replicating news on BTC alleged negative environmental impact, its use for illicit activities, and others.

However, the Director of the Dutch Bureau for Economic Analysis, Pieter Hasekamp, might be the runner-up for the prize to the most anti-Bitcoin article of the week. His publication titled “The Netherlands Must Ban Bitcoin” it’s a critic of BTC and a defense of fiat currencies.

Thus, he calls the cryptocurrency a bad form of money due to its “unclear origin, uncertain valuation, shady trading practices”. He even goes on to say that cryptocurrencies are not used in regular payment transactions.

His argument is based on Gresham’s Law, elucidated in the XVI century, and used to measure the properties of good and bad money. This economic law has a fundamental principle: bad money drives out good.

Hasekamp believes that the argument in defense of Bitcoin is wrong. He claims the cryptocurrency has none of the three functions of money: unit of account, means of payment, and store of value. At the same time, he argued that fiat currencies “score well” in these properties and are a good store of value. He said:

In recent decades, there has been hardly any currency devaluation. Although inflation is now cautiously rising, there are few people who believe that we are returning to the figures from the 60s and 70s.

The government official argues that new form of electronic payments based on fiat currencies have improved their ease of use. His conclusion is that the current financial system works “quite well in practice”. In the future, he predicts central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) will improve it further. He adds:

Cryptocurrencies are therefore unsuitable as a unit of account and means of payment outside the criminal circuit (…). Gresham’s law is replaced by Newton’s law: what goes up, must come down. The ultimate collapse of the crypto bubble is inevitable.

The Other Side Of The Coin, Bitcoin Has A Tool For Progress

The Dutch government official called for countries that opposed Bitcoin to take action. He claims that waiting longer could made the “imminent” crypto crash worst. Later, he compares cryptocurrencies with drug trafficking and explains that a full crypto ban will be more effective.

David Rosa, a Ledger developer, published a rebuttal via his Twitter account. He claims that Bitcoin must go through the properties of money in stages, first from a store of value to a unit of account. In addition, he emphasizes that BTC is an emerging asset. Therefore, many tried to use it to “get rich fast”.

Eventually, these investors have the opportunity to learn about Bitcoin’s unique properties: immutability, censorship resistance, scarcity, permissionless. Many of these characteristics made BTC an invaluable asset for people in developing countries, such as El Salvador, they have access to a global financial system and savings account far from the reach of central banks. Rosa said:

It’s intellectually dishonest to blame #Bitcoin and crypto assets for the financial instability caused by a crash. The fiat system is marked by central banks keeping interest rates artificially low, causing a misallocation of capital which in turn leads to huge corrections.

Ultimately, people turn to BTC because they stop trusting their national governments. This is the biggest crisis, at the moment, according to Rosa. In the world, it seems more frequent for central banks to serve their out interests than those of the people they claim to protect.

BREAKING: Director of the Dutch Bureau for Economic Analysis is calling for a COMPLETE BAN on mining, holding and trading #Bitcoin and other crypto assets.

Article in Dutch behind paywall:https://t.co/ECibJGBO4w

I’ve highlighted the main points in the thread 👇
1/ pic.twitter.com/T1Y84EJOEX

— David da Silva Rosa (@dldasilvarosa) June 11, 2021

At the time of writing, BTC trades at $37,041 with sideways movement in lower timeframes. The first cryptocurrency by market cap needs a push from the bulls if it wants to break resistance at $38,000 and $40,000.

Reynaldo Marquez

A literature major, Reynaldo Márquez has been deeply immersed in the crypto industry since 2017. His journey began with translating articles for various crypto news outlets, a role he took on with zeal. In 2018, amidst a challenging market, he embraced his first writing assignment, demonstrating his unwavering commitment to the nascent industry and the promise of change it bears for many people worldwide.
In March 2021, he joined the prestigious crypto news outlet NewsBTC and Bitcoinist, where he not only reported on the latest crypto news but also had the privilege of interviewing some of the industry's most influential figures. A year later, his dedication and hard work were recognized, and he was promoted to Managing Editor, a position he currently holds with pride.
He believes in honesty, good communication, hard work, and the power of cryptocurrency and its potential to transform people's lives, especially those alienated by the legacy financial system. Born in 1992 in Venezuela, Reynaldo is familiar with how governments and central banks can negatively affect people, their everyday lives, and their futures by creating inflation and erasing their hopes for a better future. Thus, like many Venezuelans, he embraced this new technology to help him and his family navigate difficult times.
In another life, Reynaldo would have pursued a career as an investigator, most likely tracking down the origins of the Cyberpunk movement with the publication of William Gibson’s ‘Neuromancer.’ The intersection between fiction and reality, with the materialization of Bitcoin in 2009, would have allowed him to dive deep into the crypto sphere as something more than a financial phenomenon but also a cultural shift in society that was brewing since the XX century, and maybe even sooner, in the XIX century with the publication of Henry David Thoreau’s ‘Civil Disobedience.’
But that’s for another life. In this one, Reynaldo has been trading to improve his trading skills. Since 2023, he has been trying to learn Python to create successful strategies and find ways to execute them. It is a difficult task, which continues to keep him busy today and will most likely continue to keep him busy in the near and long term.
In his free time, he enjoys lifting heavy objects, reading, watching movies, and listening to his favorite music. Some of his favorite authors are Walt Whitman, William Faulkner, Allen Ginsberg, James Baldwin, Raymond Carver, Ray Bradbury, George Orwell, Mario Vargas Llosa, Reinaldo Arenas, Rafael Cadenas, and many others. Lately, he has been primarily interested in reading about dystopic societies, a topic that deeply resonates with the crypto industry.
Since 2023, he has lived in Spain with his wife. He loves the weather, the food, and the people and their culture. They both expect to travel much more within the country they now call home and beyond its border. He hopes to retire with his wife, maybe in a quiet place near a beach, but most likely in a city close to a library and a university with his kids and, hopefully, grandkids.

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