2025 was expected to be a fantastic year for crypto. The money supply was increasing, the US administration turned pro-crypto, and we were nearing the end of another 4-year cycle. However, despite all of these positive indicators, the crypto market took hit-after-hit, even as stocks, gold, and silver reached new all-time highs.

As a result of the relentless market carnage, X filled up with posts from frustrated traders and investors who said they had wasted years of their lives in crypto, and that it may be time to focus on "real businesses" or "getting a real job". These short-sighted comments are the impetus for this article.

Satoshi's Gift

On January 3rd, 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto inscribed the following newspaper headline directly into the first block of Bitcoin:

The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks

Back in 2008, the world was in the throes of the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) - an event caused primarily by bankers who deliberately issued subprime loans, sold them off as mortgage-backed securities, and then requested bailouts when those toxic assets plummeted in value due to surging defaults and collapsing housing prices.

I interpret the message contained within the first Bitcoin block to mean that Satoshi was opposed to the banker bailouts of 2008, and that we need an alternative to the unjust and unsustainable debt-based financial system.

At the beginning of 2009, Satoshi unleashed a new form of money on the world - one that would not only bring transparency and accountability back to finance, but change the way we think about money and economics forever.

Why We're In Crypto

Although the traditional debt-based financial system still stands, the pillars of sand upon which it rests have been deteriorating for decades, and especially over the past few years.

How did we get here?

In 1971, the US government "temporarily" closed the gold window, cutting the anchor that linked dollars to a real commodity. This decoupling set off a decades-long run of debt and currency creation, which has gradually widened the gap between rich and poor.

The exponential credit expansion has enriched the elite - along with the people who invested early into bonds, pensions funds, stocks, and real estate - at the expense of the working class and the asset-poor youth, who have been slowly impoverished over time.

How has the monetary system shifted wealth from the people to the elite?

The Credit Cycle and QE

Each time the central bank (the Federal Reserve) lowered interest rates from 1980 to 2009, more loans were issued (constrained by the bank's reserve requirements), adding more currency to the banking system.

Although some of that currency grew the economy, much of it simply elevated the prices of assets that were already owned by the rich. Whenever rates were slightly raised along the way, many borrowers defaulted on their loans, and their assets were transferred to the wealthy.

The situation worsened after the GFC of 2008, with the introduction of 0% rates and "temporary" Quantitative Easing (the central bank buying long-term treasuries and mortgage-backed securities from institutions with currency printed out of thin air). The Federal Reserve (the Fed) also started to pay interest on reserves, decreased banks' motivation to lend out their excess funds.

As a result, each successive round of QE (in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2020, and arguably 2025) had very little impact on the real economy, but rather boosted the prices of stocks, bonds, and real estate - further enriching the elite. Meanwhile, big banks and institutional investors like Blackstone became the owners of homes that went into default.

Just when it seemed like the entire house of cards was about to collapse due to repo issues in 2019, Covid conveniently appeared. Not only did QE go into hyperdrive during the plandemic (the Fed's balance sheet increased from $4 trillion to $9 trillion), but the commercial banks' reserve requirements were also fully removed.

These days, banks can keep their reserves parked safely at the Fed for the prevailing yield (~3-5%), and there is no longer any motivation for them to pay interest to savers.

Why It's Unsustainable

Not only is the current monetary system unfair to the middle class and the youth, it is unsustainable.

Roughly $9 trillion of the US national debt, much of which was borrowed in the low-rate era, had to be rolled-over in 2025 at much higher rates. This has caused interest payment costs to exceed the budget for national defense. To top it off, $9-$10 trillion more is projected to be refinanced in 2026, which will only amplify interest payment burdens.

Lowering rates to make the debt more affordable would only encourage more lending and exasperate inflation, which is already claimed to be above target at 3%. Moreover, the most recent attempt to "normalize" the central bank's balance sheet has been halted.

Since 2008, the Fed has been indirectly monetizing the national debt with QE. Their most recent attempt to reduce the balance sheet with Quantitative Tightening (QT) only lasted for a few years, and now the Fed will once again be adding to its balance.

It should be clear by now that QE was never "temporary", and that the Fed's balance sheet will never be "normalized," and this has had a profound negative affect on the nation's youth and its economic strength.

As family life and home ownership fall further out of reach, the youth are no longer motivated to participate in the economy. Woke policies, which are only possible because the executives and employees of corporations are under the spell of central bankers, further weaken the economy.

The productive economic activity that underpins the value of both the currency and the national debt is grinding to a halt, and yet we are still grasping for dollars.

One could argue that this has all been done on purpose to consolidate power, under the guise of economic support. By gradually transferring wealth into the hands of the few, they are able to quietly take away our freedoms.

The Debt Reset

The elite know that we are reaching the end of this unsustainable monetary experiment, and that is why we have been hearing more rhetoric about The Great Reset, The Great Taking, Agenda 2030, and Central Bank Digital Currencies (or centralized stablecoins).

The middle class and the youth have already been made asset-poor, and if something like the Great Taking were to unfold, even the people who invested early into stocks, bonds, and real-estate could see a large portion of their wealth stripped away - leaving everything to the elite, in a world in which "you will own nothing, and be happy".

We can either accept the elite's solution and live in a world where they control us via AI-powered surveillance systems, or we can take matters into our own hands and build out a freedom-preserving decentralized financial system, resilient against unscrupulous individuals who would seek to subvert it.

I believe that Bitcoin (and some of its quality derivatives) will ultimately replace the unsustainable debt-based financial system that plagues us today. That said, there may be a period of time in which CBDCs and cryptocurrencies have to battle it out.

There is a big difference between a transparent decentralized cryptocurrency, owned and operated by a community, and an opaque centrally controlled digital currency, whose supply can be adjusted at will, and wallets can be arbitrarily frozen.

Possible Attacks and Manipulation

Some would argue that cryptocurrencies were created by the elite to get the population used to the idea of using digital currencies, and that when the time comes, they will swoop in with their CBDCs and outlaw decentralized cryptocurrencies entirely.

However, being both decentralized and borderless, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been engineered to withstand such attacks. The powers that be will likely use other methods to attack our industry, demoralize us, and delay the inevitable.

Parallel, Crypto-Powered Economies

If fiat currency is indeed destined to collapse under the weight of its own debt, we need not only something like Bitcoin to protect our purchasing power, but a new form of money that can drive economic activity.

Bitcoin has become an unconfiscatable, borderless, electronic store-of-value, but it cannot power economic activity like the dollar does. That said, there are other cryptocurrencies based on Bitcoin's underlying technology that can.

Helium, for example, programatically distributes Solana-based HNT tokens to people for installing and maintaining wireless infrastructure. Their novel Burn-and-Mint Equilibrium (BME) model adjusts token supply based on demand for the service.

Other Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network (DePIN) projects are working to build-out compute, storage, and data networks that reward contributors directly for their efforts, side-stepping the banking system entirely. Many of these projects have also implemented BME models, or innovative variations of it such as Dynamic Mint-and-Burn.

Compare these more efficient tokenomics to the central bank's method of issuing new tokens (dollars) based on unreliable economic indicators, crashing stock prices, or a liquidity crisis. Or compare them to Bitcoin, which continues to generate new coins every block, regardless of the actual demand for BTC.

We are witnessing the evolution of both money and economics. Decentralized, programmable money will likely be the foundation of our future economies, and simultaneously allow us to preserve our freedoms. Of course, this technology is experimental, and we will run into issues that need to be resolved, and tokenomic models that need to be iterated upon.

Crypto Is The Future

I, for one, remain steadfast in the belief that cryptocurrency will gradually be adopted by freedom-loving entrepreneurs and thought leaders around the world, despite the pitiful price action of 2025.

Those with the sole goal of increasing their fiat holdings (with leverage, God forbid), while avoiding true disruption of the financial system, will probably be wiped out and left behind by the recent attacks on our industry.

Until next time...

Measured in fiat currency, 2025 has indeed been a dismal year for crypto. However, if you look past the price action, you will see that several projects have been working tirelessly to build-out a new financial system and parallel economies.

The debt-based fiat financial system is both unjust and unsustainable, and the cryptocurrency industry is preparing to take its place - it's just a matter of time. Thanks to Bitcoin, this can be a completely peaceful revolution.

If you learned something new from this article, check out my other posts on crypto and finance here on the Hive blockchain. You can also follow me on InLeo for more frequent updates.

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