Enabling the regular usage of bitcoin is the most important step to bringing bitcoin adoption to remote places that need sound money.
This is an opinion editorial by Kudzai Kutukwa, a passionate financial inclusion advocate who was recognized by Fast Company magazine as one of South Africa’s top-20 young entrepreneurs under 30.
There is a battle going on in the world today that is largely hidden from the general public’s view. This is not a battle between nation-states, ethnic groups or religious fanatics fighting over resources and territories. Two monetary systems are on a collision course, each with its own distinct ideology and values. One system is a tool for financial enslavement, and the other, for financial freedom. It’s a battle that not only requires our attention, but our active participation. It’s the battle for the future of money: bitcoin versus fiat.
Over the last two years, we witnessed the biggest encroachment on our freedoms by The State on a global scale.
During an interview I had with Kgothatso Ngako, the founder of Machankura, stablecoins came up and I asked him if they had any intention of incorporating stablecoin payments into Machankura, to which he responded, “No we are just focused only on bitcoin.” An impressive response, given that many of bitcoin’s critics are quick to point to bitcoin’s price volatility as one of the reasons why it’s unsuitable as a means of exchange. Stablecoins are then presented as the answer to the medium of exchange function. While stablecoins do offer “price stability” in the short term, making them an important intermediate step towards hyperbitcoinization, being tokenized fiat currencies they are not immune to debasement over the long term. In short, inflation is the price for fiat “stability” that a stablecoin offers. Bitcoin on the other hand is a deflationary currency with a stable monetary policy that increases in value over time. This is a point that Austrian economist, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, brilliantly laid out in “How Is Fiat Money Possible?” when he wrote:
“Moreover, what is so great about ‘stable’ purchasing power anyway (however that term may be arbitrarily defined)? To be sure, it is obviously preferable to have a ‘stable’ money rather than an ‘inflationary’ one. Yet surely a money whose purchasing power per unit increased — ’deflationary’ money — would be preferable to a ‘stable’ one.”
Machankura’s bitcoin focus cements its position as a vital part of the global hyperbitcoinization infrastructure for hundreds of millions of people in Africa and around the world who do not have access to reliable internet, but still need sound money. The fiat monetary system was never designed to work for everybody as the developing world has for decades had inflation exported to it by the developed world. In addition to that, the fiat system’s misaligned incentives ensure that the unproductive are rewarded at the expense of the productive. The advent of Bitcoin changed all of this by redesigning a better form of money from the ground up. Tools like Machankura are essential for driving adoption and making Bitcoin accessible to everyone, everywhere. Furthermore Machankura is an extension of Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision of a peer-to-peer monetary system, one that reduces reliance on fiat intermediaries while powering Bitcoin circular economies.
This is a guest post by Kudzai Kutukwa. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.