https://ift.tt/uNjGOdg of Bitcoin Utility Is Growing Globally — Step Back From Its Price To See the Bigger Picture | by Sylvain Saurel | Feb, 2022

The Beijing Winter Olympics are over, the situation has accelerated in the last few hours at the Ukrainian border. Vladimir Putin has just officially recognized two separatist regions of Eastern Ukraine. By recognizing the Luhansk People’s Republic and the Donetsk People’s Republic as sovereign, Russia is sending a message to America and NATO.

Vladimir Putin does not care about the threats of economic and financial sanctions. He intends to move forward according to his agenda. He has continued to do so by sending Russian troops to support these two new autonomous regions.

The strategy employed here by Putin is not unlike the one used in Crimea in 2014 by emphasizing that this is a local and internal conflict in Ukraine. The aim is to demotivate the Americans and Europeans from interfering.

Faced with Vladimir Putin’s attitude, the Americans and Europeans are still studying the economic and financial sanctions they should take against Russia. These sanctions must be strong enough to discourage Russia from going further into the Donbas, but not too strong, otherwise, Russia would have nothing left to lose.

The situation is therefore complicated.

Well aware of all this, Russia has decided to accelerate its recognition of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in recent days. For Russia, it is necessary to prepare for everything, and even for the exclusion of all its institutions from the global payment network SWIFT. Under these conditions, it would be crazy to close the door to Bitcoin, which is the only global P2P payment system whose transactions cannot be censored.

Awareness of the utility of Bitcoin is accelerating unexpectedly with these geopolitical events. Ukraine has also accelerated its recognition of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. For Ukraine, this move makes sense since a large portion of the population already uses cryptocurrencies in their daily lives.

In a report published at the end of 2021, Chainalysis already highlighted the fact that Ukrainians were already making more transactions in cryptocurrencies than in the local currency, the hryvnia. So this is a move that will be welcomed by the people.

If you understand the why of Bitcoin, you won’t be surprised to see these two countries open up to Bitcoin at a time when a war could break out. A war with global implications. Bitcoin is set to become the native currency of the Internet in the future.

On the other side of the northern hemisphere, it is in Canada that Bitcoin is showing its interest in the face of a government that continues its authoritarian excesses. In defiance of Canada’s constitution, which guarantees every citizen the right to peaceful protest, Justin Trudeau is now attacking the financial freedom of its citizens.

Canada’s abuse of government power will forever be etched in the history books, and it makes many opponents of Bitcoin aware of its utility even in the Western world. So the famous programmer David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of the popular Ruby on Rails web development framework, published an interesting blog post explaining why he was wrong about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

I invite you to read it in full to make up your mind, but what stands out is exactly what I have been telling you all along: the fact that we live in Western democracies does not guarantee our fundamental freedoms.

Freedom is a fragile thing that we must always fight for. By accepting restrictions on freedom for exceptional reasons, as Justin Trudeau would have us believe in Canada, we run the risk of making it permanent. This is something Canada is currently tempted to do by making permanent its power of financial surveillance and censorship over citizens.

Bitcoin is our best defense as a global, leaderless P2P payment system. Just imagine what Canada would be able to do today with a CBDC. It would be even easier to attack the financial freedom of its citizens. Let me say it again: CBDCs will only add to the problems of fiat currencies by undermining your privacy and placing you at the mercy of the powerful people in the current system.

Buying Bitcoin is an absolute necessity for everyone on Earth to be able to keep control of their money, and therefore ultimately their lives. Even a former staunch opponent of Bitcoin like David Heinemeier Hansson finds it hard to believe, but everything Bitcoiner have been saying for years is happening:

“I still can’t believe that this is the protest that would prove every Bitcoin crank a prophet. And for me to have to slice a piece of humble pie, and admit that I was wrong on crypto’s fundamental necessity in Western democracies.”

At a time when everyone has eyes only for the price of Bitcoin and wonders if a Bear Market is imminent, I invite you to step back and look at the bigger picture. If you do, you’ll see that everything that’s going on in the world right now legitimizes Bitcoin even more and will have a phenomenal impact on its adoption in the months and years to come.

So don’t panic, the best is yet to come for Bitcoin. Instead, look at the current situation as an opportunity to be seized as I explained in the 4 moves to make in case of a Bear Market. Moves that will make all the difference in the future.

It’s up to you to decide which side you want to be on.