Summary
Elon Musk claims his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is shutting down payments to federal contractors, including a Lutheran charity, asserting it is eliminating corruption.
This suggests DOGE has access to Treasury’s payment systems, though officials have not confirmed the extent.
Senator Ron Wyden warned that DOGE may interfere with Social Security, Medicare, and government contracts.
Musk also called USAID “a criminal organization” that should “die,” amid DOGE’s growing influence over federal financial operations.
If the US government stops paying their bills at a certain point the country is technically defaulting. That’s going to be fun.
Guess you’ll have to use crypto once your dollar is worthless
Or they can use euros. They’re widely accepted.
I don’t think crypto will replace USD as a global currency if USD fails.
Euro or Yuan would
But the people in office would certainly want to replace it with crypto domestically
Yes, they might find a way to force crypto to be used in a case like that - but I think that would be a logistical nightmare and they would probably have to setup some kind of system to make it feasible.
I do suspect the currency of whatever geopolitical entity demands the most economic power in the vacuum left by the U.S. collapsing will become the new global currency, but it’s also possible that this hypothetical world become more economically isolated, such that there is no single accepted global currency.
But yeah, Euro or Yuan would be my guess as well.
You know of a better alternative? Ain’t nobody going to be trading gold like an 1800’s prospector.
Literally any currency would be more likely and “better” than crypto. The alternative to crypto is not trading gold, but using other major currencies, like Euros. It’s unclear if the U.S. dollar collapses what currency will replace it, but I suspect that will be determined by geopolitical dominance more than anything else.
Better? No. But why do you think China has been pushing all of the infrastructure projects in Africa, South America, and Eastern Europe? They are ready and waiting for the USD to blow up.
Using crypto as the main currency would require too much of most people. Let’s not forget how many people who need to use currency but who are illiterate, who have trouble using websites or phones, etc. Crypto is not accessible to large segments of the population, and in that sense it is impractical and clearly not better than other currencies.
Let’s also not forget that crypto was specifically designed to prevent monetary policies from being able to influence the currency. Not only is crypto impractical for much of the population, but the government will have fewer tools to stabilize the value of the currency. It’s a nightmare on many fronts.
Learn how to spin up a monero node and stick it on the tor network. Only buy bitcoin and wash it with monero for transactions.
Don’t gamble on shitcoins.
Don’t get caught up in mining or NFTs
Then the internet gets shut down and you realize you have nothing.
That’s the brilliance of crypto: it can work even on paper. Without the internet, it’s a major pain in the ass, but trades are still possible by using good old fashioned paper ledgers.
Bury your reichmarcs in your mattress if you wish. We’re all trying to navigate this with the coping mechanisms we have.
My tor node is accessible outside of the US as is my ability to get there if things need be.
But right now I need a secure way to get funds to people in red states whose finances might be tracked so that they can get the gender affirming care in states that still allow it, or so they can move to states that aren’t actively trying to kill them.
And right now this is the safest way to get them funds that cannot be interfered with or traced by state or federal governments.
I respect your intentions.
You’re right to question the motives of a stranger talking about crypto on the internet. Caution is important but defeatism will kill us all. If you don’t believe in a better world you won’t try for one. And you’ll get what they give you. What all of us need right now is a little more unity and a lot more mutual aid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz3bDQ14ISg
Agreed, keep you loved ones close and safe, help who you can when you can.
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That’s a long conversation. Please allow me to share a YouTube video that gets to the crux of the issue first. And I can share technical docs afterwards.
However you are 100% correct. Bitcoin is anything but anonymous. XMR/Monero is and has always been fully cryptographic, with the minor issue that if someone controls a node you connect your wallet to, there is metadata that will out you.
I don’t agree with everything this guy says about politics or social issues but he’s correct on netsec issues.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QrHsFZBab4U
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nDBHhz00vjI
As far as anonymizing your bitcoin you’ll need to do your own research. But here’s how not to do it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7CD_Nl3iwhE
If you’re gonna do that research do it on an updated tails distro as the previous release was compromised.
https://tails.net/install/index.en.html
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Don’t spend more than 20 bucks to figure out how it all works if you want to tinker. It is not a safe store of wealth. The best usecase is for anonymous and secure transactions.
horse_battery_staple has a more comprehensive comment than this one:
Yeah bitcoin is public, but anonymous (until the very first time you interact with some account in your name). Monero, in short, is like bitcoin but with washing is built into every transaction. It’s far, far from perfect (like all current crypto-currencies), but is a meaningful improvement over Bitcoin (it also supports higher transactions/second).
In my opinion, Bitcoin and Monero are the only crypto-currencies worth engaging with at this time. I haven’t looked into Etherium or Solana, mostly because the idea of ‘decentralized apps running on the chain’ seems like beyond ludicrous scope creep for the problem of ‘minimal trust currency’. The one thing they do right is the Proof of Stake transaction confirmation algorithm, which is much more energy (and CO2) efficient than Proof of Work as used by Bitcoin and Monero.
If the dollar tanks, crypto’s going with it.
It’s almost like they’re not being fiscally responsible conservatives or something…