Author: rick awsb Source: X, @rickawsb
"The death spiral of the traditional legal currency financial system will drive the skyrocketing flywheel of cryptocurrency. Embracing cryptocurrency is not a question of return on investment, but a choice about personal and family economic security"
Introduction: The biggest change since the French Revolution
To understand this profound power change in our time, the historical reference system should not be the Cold War and World War II, but Paris in the late 18th century. The French Revolution was the beginning of the modern era, a revolution by the emerging nation-state against the decadent feudal system. It took power from the scattered nobility and the church and merged it into a unified, supreme sovereign entity-the state. This revolution established a principle that has been irrefutable for more than two hundred years since then: the nation-state is the most important power actor on the planet.
Today, we are on the eve of a revolution in the exact opposite direction. This is a new revolution, but its spearhead is not directed at a specific king or class, but directly at the product created by the French Revolution: the sovereign state.
If the subject of the last revolution was the "nation" as a collective awakening, the pioneer of this revolution is the atomized "sovereign individual" armed to the teeth with technology and capital
The manifestation of this change is in line with the line "Chaos is not an abyss, chaos is a ladder"
This article aims to reveal how this new revolution happened. We will see how the core power of the state - from violence to currency - is being quietly privatized and flowing to the upstarts entrenched in the cloud.
We will demonstrate how today's global turmoil is being systematically exploited to disintegrate the organizational form of the nation-state and ultimately empower the digital age elites who have broken free from the constraints of region and nationality.
This is not a conspiracy theory, but a power structure change that is happening in the sun, which can be called the most grandiose since the French Revolution. To analyze how chaos is formed and how the ladder is built, we must understand the interests of Trump's base, financial backers and his global allies. They occupy a unique position in the global turmoil, which not only protects them from the fire of chaos instigated by them, but also allows them to draw political nutrients from it: First, the deteriorating global security is the ladder of the new military-industrial oligarchy in the United States. Trump takes advantage of the unparalleled geographical and economic insulation of the United States. The geographical location surrounded by two oceans makes the United States a natural "offshore balancer", and Trump is well aware of this - he can provoke or manage conflicts in Eurasia and transform the resulting panic and insecurity into domestic political support. When wars rage around the world and the economy is in turmoil, American voters - especially Trump's base - will instinctively seek the protection of a "strongman" leader. This narrative of "only I can solve it" is at the core of Trump's political brand.
Based on the same concept, we have seen Trump's fundamental transformation of the US global strategy: from the "world policeman" of the past to the "protection fee collector" of today. The traditional "world policeman" role, no matter how self-interested its motivations, requires certain costs and responsibilities. And Trump has transformed this responsibility into a pure transaction - "You want security? Pay!"
The military expenditure requirements made to NATO allies during the Trump administration, and the explicit statement that they hope they will buy "the best hardware made in the United States", are a clear manifestation of this transformation. This has created a huge market for the new US technology military-industrial complex that supports Trump.
For example: the "Golden Dome as a Service" model is designed to give Trump's new military-industrial complex financiers in Silicon Valley a perfect return on investment.
Photo: Research report from think tank CSIS: "Golden Dome as a Service"
This strategic transformation has cost the world a huge price, but it has brought huge dividends to Trump's military-industrial oligarch financiers. When the world falls into a "security death spiral" - the United States pushes its allies to increase their armaments, triggering opponents to follow suit, leading to an increase in the risk of regional conflicts - Trump and his financiers can benefit from it: every security crisis will be converted into orders for the new US military-industrial complex and new job opportunities for the magas.
Secondly, the crazy tariff war is the ladder of MAGA
Trump has taken advantage of the unique economic structure of the United States and the basic interests of his supporters to launch a tariff war: Unlike a manufacturing powerhouse that is highly dependent on exports, the GDP growth of the United States is mainly driven by the service industry and domestic consumption. In 2023, the proportion of manufacturing in the US GDP will be only about 10.2%, far lower than the level of 21-25% from the 1950s to the 1970s.
But most of the MAGAs who support Trump come from this low-proportion manufacturing industry.
Trump dares to tear up the existing World Trade Organization (WTO) framework and impose tariffs on a large scale. His confidence lies in the US economic structure and Trump's base itself.
This means that even if tariff wars and trade frictions are provoked worldwide, the direct impact on the US economy itself is far less than that on its trade opponents, especially those countries whose economic lifeline is manufacturing.
Although it is very harmful to the capital that traditionally relies on globalization on Wall Street, these capitals are supporters of the Democratic Party, and for Trump's Rust Belt MAGA base, this is a good deal with low risk and high returns.
The effect of this strategy on MAGA is emerging. Through tariff barriers and incentives from industrial policies such as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Chip and Science Act, the United States is systematically guiding the return of manufacturing. Faced with geopolitical risks and tariff pressures, companies are actively moving their supply chains back to the United States to seek security and stability. Data shows that in recent years, the momentum of the repatriation of manufacturing and foreign direct investment (FDI) in the United States has been strong. In 2023 alone, 287,000 related jobs were announced, the second highest year in history; by the end of 2024, the total amount of accumulated repatriated investment had soared to 1.7 trillion US dollars. This shows that tearing up the old global trade pattern will not only have limited impact on the magas in the American rust belt, but in the long run it will even help them to rebuild a more resilient domestic industrial base, which can be called "dividends in chaos".
Every closed German factory may mean a reopened American factory; every diverted Chinese freighter is verifying MAGA's prediction of "manufacturing repatriation".
The global security crisis and trade crisis are new jobs for magas.
The more the MAGA movement promotes "America First", the more it destroys traditional alliances, the more it strikes at Wall Street, the global capital force, and the more it supports populist forces in various countries, the more unstable the international and domestic order will be; and the more unstable the international order, the more "validated" the MAGA worldview will be, the more secure its jobs will be, and the more solid its political foundation will be. This is another self-reinforcing cycle of chaos.
Third, a chaotic world is a ladder for right-wing politicians
Trump and Musk have repeatedly publicly supported right-wing forces in countries around the world, including their allies.
This policy is a well-thought-out strategy aimed at disintegrating the old international order.
A world composed of strong, unified alliances (such as a strategically autonomous European Union) is a potential competitor for the United States. A world composed of fragmented, insecure, militarily independent countries that ultimately need to buy "security services" from the United States is a world that the United States can dominate with lower costs and higher profits. The essence of the "madman theory" or "calculated chaos" pursued by the Trump administration is to break the predictability of traditional diplomacy, make all countries uneasy and suspicious, and thus disintegrate any alliance that may challenge American hegemony. This is the ultimate evolution from "offshore balance" to "offshore profiteering".
The more chaotic the world is, the more it turns to the right; the more it turns to the right, the more chaotic the world is. This "calculated chaos" exported by the United States has spawned another vicious cycle around the world. The continued intensification of security pressure (such as the Russia-Ukraine war) and trade frictions (such as the tariff war) have made countries generally feel economic recession and identity crisis, and the people's xenophobia and desire for tough leaders have risen. This provides the most fertile soil for the rise of local populism, which in turn promotes the global political spectrum to collectively "turn to the right".
This trend has been vividly demonstrated in recent elections around the world. From the historic breakthroughs of far-right parties such as the French National Rally and the German Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the European Parliament elections, to the governments led by right-wing or extreme rock-wing parties in the Netherlands, Italy, Sweden and other countries, and the recent historic breakthrough of the right-wing election in Japan, a strong right-wing turn is sweeping the world. The core propositions of these rising political forces all revolve around: tightening immigration policies, holding high the banner of trade protectionism, questioning or even hostile to existing multilateral cooperation frameworks (such as the EU and NATO)
And Trump and his allies are actively adding fuel to this wave. Trump not only incites political polarization in the United States, but also publicly endorses his rock-wing "comrades-in-arms" in Europe. From Orban in Hungary to Marine Le Pen in France, he does not hesitate to praise them and regards their victory as a global echo of his "Make America Great Again" movement.
Musk used his huge social media platform X to play the role of "propaganda minister" in the new era. He is regarded as a "far-right activist" and uses his platform to publicly support European far-right parties such as the German Alternative for Germany, amplifying their voices and injecting them with public opinion energy beyond national borders.
This transnational coordination between "leaders" has formed a strong resonance with the right turn in various countries. A world dominated by a stone-wing government that prioritizes its own interests and advocates trade protection will inevitably further tear apart the international trade system and disintegrate the already fragile traditional alliances, which is exactly the "fragmented world" expected by the US "offshore profit-making" strategy. A more insecure and divided international environment, in turn, has become a perfect reason for more extreme and aggressive right-wing populist policies, pushing the world into a deadly spiral of "chaos → right turn → more chaos". Every rotation of this spiral provides a more solid stepping stone for the new power elites to climb the "ladder of chaos".
Fourth, the chaos of the monetary and financial system is the ladder of encryption
Everything has its gains and losses. Trump seems to have benefited a lot from doing this, but in fact he is hurting the existing US-led order. The price paid is the existing global monetary and financial system, including the existing US monetary and financial system.
When the ripples of chaos spread further from the level of geopolitics and domestic politics to the core of the global financial system, we have come to the most critical level of this ladder. Here, the decline of the Japanese order and the rise of the new order are playing out a thrilling "spiral of life and death".
The old financial order makes voters and capital feel that it is hopelessly morbid. In the United States, persistent inflation not seen in decades, coupled with the uncontrolled national debt, is eroding the credit foundation of the US dollar system from within (at least the Wall Street elites who control the discourse try to make the public believe this). On the other side of the ocean, China, the world's second largest economy, is facing the exact opposite dilemma - the continued risk of deflation caused by the deep contraction of the real estate industry, which also worries the market.
When the two major alarm bells of the global economy malfunctioned at the same time, a general distrust of the existing legal currency system began to spread.
This is the feeling of the starting point of the "Death Spiral" in finance: in order to cope with the crisis, governments can only continue to over-issue currency and accumulate debt, which is essentially diluting the wealth of all legal currency holders and eroding the intrinsic value of the system step by step. Or on the contrary, in order to maintain the stability of the local currency, when the housing prices and other asset prices have fallen sharply, in order to achieve the national goals, regardless of the people's ability to bear, in the case of serious oversupply of demand, they are still unwilling to carry out distribution system reform to stimulate consumption, leading to severe deflation, while strictly controlling the outflow of assets, and increasing taxes in disguise, affecting confidence and in turn aggravating the decline in asset prices.
However, the "negative death spiral" of the old order has provided a strong "positive flywheel" for the new order. Cryptocurrency, a ghost born on the ruins of the 2008 financial crisis, is drawing strength from every shock of the traditional financial system. A positive flywheel based on the death spiral of the traditional economy has begun to turn: The traditional financial system exposes its fragility> The public's trust has declined and seeks alternatives> Capital flows into the crypto market> Pushing up the price of crypto assets and attracting more developers and capital> The infrastructure and legitimacy of the crypto world have been strengthened> Further attracting capital and users from the mainstream world, thereby putting greater pressure on the Japanese system and exacerbating the fragility of traditional finance.
If the above cycle is just a spontaneous behavior of the market, then the next step of the "Gongshuo Yingzhi" to Baohe marks that the state power has begun to take the initiative to pave the legal track for this new order. This is the legislative attempt of a series of stablecoins and virtual assets related to US stocks represented by the "Genius Act".
On the surface, this is a bill aimed at "regulating" cryptocurrencies, but its core spirit is far from that. It is actually establishing a legal framework for the "privatization of coinage rights." The core of the bill is to allow licensed non-bank private entities to issue payment-type stablecoins that are 1:1 anchored to the US dollar and supported by sufficient high-quality assets (such as cash and short-term Treasury bonds). This is tantamount to the contemporary US government issuing licenses to mint digital dollars to capitalists in the new era.
In this historic transformation, the blockchain industry, which carries assets such as stablecoins and US stocks, will be the biggest beneficiary.
One of the clearest signals comes from the actions of Peter Thiel. This Silicon Valley thinker and investor, who is also an important promoter of the concept of "sovereign individuals", was recently revealed to have invested heavily in a company called Bitminelmmersion (BMNR). The core strategy of this company is to transform into an Ethereum financial reserve company, that is, to accumulate a large amount of Ethereum, the blockchain that currently carries the largest amount of stablecoins, as the core asset of its balance sheet. It is no coincidence that Thiel's investment coincides with the significant progress of the GENIUS Act in Congress. This is a precise and strategic bet on the core infrastructure of the future privatized financial system.
This is a Faustian deal. In the short term, the state may be able to consolidate its financial hegemony with the help of private sector innovation and efficiency. But in the long run, it has personally given legitimacy to a new decentralized financial order that it cannot fully control. It is playing the role of a midwife, helping the "child" that will eventually replace itself - a financial era belonging to the "sovereign individual" - to be born smoothly.
No regulation (let it go):This is equivalent to completely abandoning the position. A parallel, more efficient, and globalized financial system will grow wildly without any hindrance until it completely drains the liquidity and talent of the traditional system and eventually completely hollows it out. This is a kind of boiling frog suicide.
Strict regulation (full ban):This is a seemingly tough, but actually more stupid path. History has repeatedly proved that technology and capital are like water, and it is better to drain than to block. Severe bans will only push all innovative activities, capital, and talent overseas or into the underground where it is more difficult to track. The country not only loses potential tax revenue and development opportunities, but also completely loses any visibility and influence in this field. This is a self-mutilation of the self-mutilation of the meridian.
The seeds of the next global financial turmoil have been planted, and it will surely become the ladder for cryptocurrency to the moon.
V. The reconstruction of power is the ladder of "sovereign individuals"
In this power reconstruction driven by chaos, we can clearly identify four forces that are converging. They are not a conspiring group, but a "New Power Trinity" formed by common interests and similar worldviews. They work together to climb this ladder to the new order.
The third force is the "new civilian leaders" (The NewPopulares, that is, political disruptors who are good at using populism and information warfare. Represented by Trump and Elon Musk, who has a huge influence through his social platform X, they play the role of "battering ram". They use political power and media platforms to fiercely attack and deconstruct the establishment institutions of the current order (such as NATO, the European Union, and the "Washington Swamp"), incite political polarization at home and abroad, promote global political changes, and disintegrate traditional alliances. Musk used the X platform to openly support far-right parties in European countries. He was accused of interfering in elections and was regarded as a "far-right activist." The chaotic and divided political atmosphere they created created the most favorable external environment for the rise of the first two forces.
Everything built by this new power alliance ultimately points to an ultimate goal: empowering the "Sovereign Individual".
"Sovereign individuals" are the elites of the digital age. With their technology and wealth, they have freed themselves from the constraints of geography and nation-states. Today, this concept is accelerating into reality. In addition to cryptocurrency, another key catalyst is the popularization of powerful artificial intelligence tools. Take the DeepSeek model released by a Chinese startup as an example. It provides powerful capabilities close to or even surpassing the top closed-source models in some aspects in the form of open source, and at a very low cost.
The various AI models available to everyone now are not only proficient in coding and mathematical reasoning, but also have strong logical analysis and complex problem-solving capabilities. This means that an independent individual or a small team, with the help of such AI tools, can have the analysis, design and creation capabilities that would have required a large enterprise or even a national institution to match in the past. A dedicated individual user can use it to quickly become a drone weapons expert, a biochemist, or a modeling master of financial derivatives.
Six, where does the ladder of sovereign individuals ultimately lead to?
The top of this ladder is the erosion and deconstruction of the traditional nation-state established under the Westphalian system. The ultimate goal of this carefully planned or spontaneous chaos is to break down those huge, cumbersome, and difficult-to-manage sovereign entities into smaller and more "market-competitive" governance units. A divided Europe, an atomized Middle East, and an internally polarized United States are all more likely to be influenced and dominated by offshore new power centers that control technology and capital than a unified and powerful opponent.
This is a concept conceived by Balaji Srinivasan in his works, depicting a digital-first future society. It is not based on geographical boundaries, but a global online community united by a common ideology or moral concept. It has its own cryptocurrency as an internal economic system, purchases and manages scattered physical territories around the world through crowdfunding (forming a "Network Archipelago"), and eventually seeks "diplomatic recognition" from existing sovereign states to become a legitimate new player on the international stage.
It is not only a pipeline for transactions, but also a value settlement layer on which these future "cyber countries" rely to establish their internal economic systems. The trust of large funds and institutions such as Wall Street giants and sovereign funds in blockchain is based on the belief that the decentralization and security of blockchain are sufficient to resist attacks from sovereign state levels in this chaotic era!
VII. Conclusion: Chaos or ladder, it depends on your choice
The pendulum of history has swung back to a critical position again. The chaos after the French Revolution was not the end. It was a long and bloody transition. It destroyed the order of feudal Europe, but it also gave birth to the nation-state system that continues to this day.
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Anais
