What’s Bitcoin Role After End of Petrodollar System? Arthur Hayes Says

Reynaldo Marquez

3 years ago

3 mins read

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Bitcoin could have a bigger role in the international board as superpowers compete for dominance over the financial system. The benchmark crypto has seen some relief in the last day, as the U.S. Federal Reserve (FED) tightens, and the shadow of war looms over Europe.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin trades at $40,700 with a 1% profit over the past day and a 3% loss in the past week.

As Gold Rises, So Will Bitcoin…

In a recent post from BitMEX Co-Founder Arthur Hayes, there is a prediction for Bitcoin for the coming years, and a declaration with potential implications for the whole world: the financial system supported by oil and dollars came to an end.

Otherwise known as “Petrodollars”, the term describes the way our current financial ecosystem is supported by the exchange of the U.S. dollar for this commodity, the world’s main source of energy. Big oil producers accept this currency, almost exclusively, for their products.

This gives the U.S. dollar a prime position in the financial system, contributing to its global reserve currency status. The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) is another major component of that system. For some, Bitcoin is a direct competitor and a threat to this status quo.

In his essay, titled “Energy Cancelled”, Hayes claims the Petrodollar system came to an end. The invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army led to the imposition of sanctions from the international community to the Vladimir Putin-led country.

Russian banks and a portion of the country’s fiat currency reserve were seized by the U.S. and European Union (EU). The weaponization of the U.S. dollars has led Russia and China, contesting the role of this currency on the global scene, to find alternatives and possibly push for a new financial system.

8/12 Now add in the news that Saudi Arabia is considering accepting #Yuan instead of Dollars for Chinese oil and you have an accelerator for more economic problems and market uncertainty. https://t.co/5by5PkH8Vf

— Material Indicators (@MI_Algos) March 16, 2022

Hayes believes this new system is yet to be named but could potentially be supported by a “neutral” medium of exchanges, such as Gold. This would directly impact Bitcoin, Hayes said:

A new neutral reserve asset, which I believe will be gold, will be used to facilitate global trade in energy and foodstuffs. From a philosophical standpoint, central banks and sovereigns appreciate the value of gold, but not that of Bitcoin (…). Bitcoin is less than two decades old. But don’t worry: as gold succeeds so will Bitcoin.

Money Has Changed Forever, Why Bitcoin Will Benefit

Later, Hayes breaks down the evolution of money and the network that supports money, from its physical to its digital phase. In the latter, individuals, entities, and small countries have money stored on centralized, permissioned networks, and can potentially be locked out of their wealth, if a bank or government decides to.

In case the dominant countries on this network, the U.S. and E.U. or China for the current financial system, decide to block network access to a participant, questions about the status quo emerge.

Russia’s recent sanctions, the essay claims, is a one-of-a-kind case in history. The digitalization of the monetary network has made it possible to “cancel”, to “shun”, the country at this scale. Hayes said:

Money is a medium of energy storage, and the most-used monetary instruments now lack the largest energy producer globally as a user. Why should any central bank “save” in any Western fiat currency, when their savings can be expropriated arbitrarily and unilaterally by the operators of the digital fiat monetary networks?

Data shared by Hayes estimates current savings in $12 trillion, most countries store these funds on a network controlled by a superpower. These funds will be moved, says Hayes, to a new network.

Gold is the potentially direct benefactor, as mentioned, China and other countries could begin injecting buying pressure into the Gold spot market. Long Gold could be this decade’s most important trade. Wheat, grains, and other commodities could follow.

In the long term, Hayes expects Gold to reach $10,000 on the spot. The rise of the precious metal will spill into all hard money assets, Bitcoin included. The cryptocurrency could hit $1 million per coin, as Gold moves upward. Hayes added:

(…) any and all hard monetary assets believed to protect portfolios from this pestilence will get bid to astronomical levels. And that is the mental shift that breaks the correlation of Bitcoin with traditional risk-on / off assets, such as US equities and nominal interest rates.

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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