The Crypto Wars

World Web II

I may be aging myself, but I remember the battle for digital dominance waged when the world went Web2. The MySpaces and Snapchats of the world vying for our collective attentions, the awkward mergers, the controversial marketing, and a struggle for survival that left a graveyard of .coms and Enrons in its wake. Yet, from the ashes arose the Amazons and the Ubers and the Instagrams. The sticky massive-cap apps stealing each other's ideas and muscling themselves into each other’s territory, carving out pseudomonopolistic kingdoms and staging the rules for a new digital aristocracy. Data, once the derelict byproduct of the tech world, became a new commodity, harvested from servers and human minds.

And then came Bitcoin - once the seemingly innocuous currency of ubergeeks and libertarians, now the great structure disruptor - an existential threat to the global financial establishment. At first, the banks scoffed, with their pundits on soapboxes… the expert from so and so who worked for such and such wagging their fat fingers in our faces and letting us all know that digital currency was backed by nothing, and that, somehow, their inflated banking currency was more reliable. When that failed to turn public opinion, they resisted it openly, calling in favors to their friends in high places to overregulate through ill-defined policies, making compliance impossible in an attempt to guillotine the industry. And finally, licking their thumb and raising it to the wind, they flipped their cards and rolled out their own, highly-controlled, neutered versions. Like a hypocrite in the pulpit, they adopted the culture while rejecting its founding principles. The old guard has gone from dismissing crypto as a destructive fad to scrambling for a piece of the action, just as they did when the internet itself was an unruly toddler. 

Resistance, acceptance, exploitation - rinse and repeat

But while Bitcoin maximalists mine their digital gold and Ethereum enthusiasts stake their earnings, a new, but not novel phenomenon has emerged. Little more than an expletive with a coin suffix, memecoins are the bastard daughters of Brainrot and the Gamestop Short. These flashcoins are the tokenized equivalent of NFT’s, remnants of a brief time where large groups of people with double-digit IQ’s liquidated their life savings because their barber told them a hyperlink of a pixelated frog deserved a billion-dollar valuation. And yet somehow, despite the freshness of the wound, and a well-enough window for self-reflection, the world’s most decentralized casino is churning these out to an audience more captive than ever.

The Fog of War

I consider myself a realist. I understand that the proliferation of memecoins is symptomatic of a streamlining in the minting process and a public embrace of speculation and rug-pulling. Just as website-building softwares gave rise to the .com bubble, so too the ease of producing cryptocurrency has produced a steady superfluous stream of vaporcoins. If you weren't paying attention, you might think this is the current state of the crypto world, a zero-sum game where nothing is built and nothing is gained. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Beneath the frothy meme-fueled surface is where the real action is taking place. Layer 1 blockchains, the infrastructural titans of this decentralized Wild West, are quietly amassing war chests, and the founders of established projects are grabbing Venture Capital to prepare for the next cold snap. Cruel as the cycle is, crypto winter serves the same purpose as seasonal winter, it starves the weak companies, and discourages the casual founders, so the talent can be gleaned for those most likely to survive long term. Insiders are already bracing for this event, tempered by the wild hope that we will skip the next downcycle due to positive shifts in regulatory agencies, increased consumer demand, wider acceptance, and fewer alternative high-return investments. 

Veterans have been cautious not to make public market predictions so they can ride the current wave and take profits when the first snowflake falls. Like exhausted heavyweights clinching in the championship rounds, there is an unspoken agreement between influencers and insiders to have a period of rest between punches where they both regain strength. But off the record and properly lubricated, the whole lot of ‘em sound like they were raised in House Stark.  The question isn't “if” it will come, the question is, “who will survive.”

For every wave of speculative euphoria, there is a bloodletting

That's the history. Let's cut to the chase. 

Mobilization

There’s something about this particular cycle that feels…different. 

The geopolitical environment is about as unstable as it has been in a generation, with major conflicts in the middle east and in the eastern bloc, and a naval arms race simmering in Southeast Asia. International competition in Artificial Intelligence, Advanced Chips and Quantum Computing has reached a head, and has even begun to percolate into the public square, where there is unanimous agreement that the world is about to experience a burst of technological innovation. The global political atmosphere has decidedly tilted right, with a strong mandate of fixing runaway inflation, curbing unfettered immigration, and slashing government expenditures, punctuated by an international tariff tiff that is unlikely to resolve quickly. 

Given this convergence of events, and the primary imperatives of governments focused on monetary policy and geostrategic considerations, it makes sense that the major regulatory agencies appear to have backed way, way…way off.  As a proverbial cherry on top, a sitting US President has launched a meme token of himself and his wife, with more than a billion dollars in 24 hr trading. If that isn’t an unambiguous message to the market that crypto is off the leash, I don’t know what is.

For years the market has operated under a harrowing cloud of scrutiny and regulation, kneecapped by downward pressure from banks and lobbyists and governments and the sheer complexity of the underlying technology. Where it did succeed, it was often ridiculed for its cumbersome processes and limited applications. Most projects thus far are little more than geeky, poorly marketed solutions to problems nobody had.

That is all set to change. 

For the first time in our lifetime, crypto has gotten the nod. 

The stage is set, the die is cast; and the industry now has the opportunity to either throw the game winning touchdown and go home with the prom queen, or to choke under the crushing pressure of the bright lights and slow walk into the tunnel a loser; to either execute on the promises they've been made for a generation, or acknowledge that the mirage of transformative technology was all sail and no anchor.

Declaration of Independence

Enough with the metaphors. Let us speak plainly.

We are closing in on two decades of hype since the Bitcoin whitepaper. The public has been sold on the idea that blockchain technology would change the world the way the internet changed the world. We were told that the financial markets would be disrupted, that the internet and all its processes would be decentralized, that currency would be stable, secure, and would replace cash and credit at the point of sale.

None of that happened.

But there were always excuses. Good ones. Believable ones. Believable enough to risk it all on the next promise. But these aren't going to fly this time around.

This time, the industry has to deliver.

And there is a definitive, observable, concrete timeline in the sand to do so.

Let me explain.

History has a knack for hiding revolutions in plain sight. 

The fall of Byzantium wasn’t heralded by a single cannon shot [go ahead and look it up, yes, there were canons by that time], but by a slow erosion of power, punctuated by an occasional technological innovation that shifted the geopolitical balances. 

In much the same way, cryptocurrency isn’t just experiencing a meteoric rise—it’s stealthily embedding itself into the very fabric of modern finance while the old guard clutches their ledgers. One could even argue resistance to blockchain is the classic Theucydides trap, where a rising power comes into conflict with an established power, and the result is external conflict. 

Axis and Allies

I will admit that I have been on the wrong side of this conversation at times, but I have noticed that the critical party loves to harp on about crypto volatility, as if the entire history of fiat currency hasn’t been one long parade of speculative disaster and class warfare. Meanwhile, countries are suddenly tripping over themselves to embrace what they once condemned. El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment may be a fiscal Rorschach test, but it undeniably set off a chain reaction. Nigeria, once hostile to digital assets, now has a central bank digital currency (CBDC), and Brazil is building a digital Real while integrating blockchain into state functions like land registry. Even the European Central Bank, that cautious and stable bastion of fiscal orthodoxy, is mulling a digital Euro, worried that if they fail to do so they will be outpaced by their former colonies.

The real genius of cryptocurrency’s rise lies in precisely this… its far reaching, multi-layered, multifaceted appeal. To the libertarian, it’s a proverbial middle finger to centralized control. To the tech enthusiast, it’s a marvel of cryptographic ingenuity. To the financier, it’s an investment vehicle to rival the internet boom. That the same asset class can be championed by anarchists, venture capitalists, and your neighborhood Starbucks barista is nothing short of alchemical.

But let’s not kid ourselves—crypto’s conquest isn’t without casualties. As the blockchain economy burgeons, so proliferates its criminal underbelly. Ransomware payments in Bitcoin reached $1.4 billion in 2022, up 70% from the previous year. And while mainstream media wrings its hands over the nefarious uses of digital assets, fiat continues to bankroll far more illicit activity without the benefit of an immutable ledger.

What governments and critics fail to grasp is that cryptocurrency has already transcended its nascent identity as a rebellious tech toy. It’s metamorphosed into a sprawling, decentralized financial ecosystem that is impervious to sovereign whims. Bitcoin is not just digital gold—it’s the Magna Carta of currency, breaking the chains of fiscal autocracy. Ethereum isn’t just a platform—it’s the Silk Road of smart contracts, weaving trade agreements across borders with digital diplomatic immunity. We need to see these projects for what they really are, philosophical paradigm shifts in practice.

Here I want to say something, perhaps controversial, but I hope it sticks. 

These front-running currencies are the prototypes, not the masterpieces.

We are a decade or two from those.

But they are inevitable.

Crypto is no longer on the fringe. It's an established frontrunner with the strongest claim to the future. It is consistently listed with Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Computing as one of the most promising emergent technologies. And that, my friends, leads me to my next point.

Spacetime

Yeah, you heard me right. 

Spacetime is a term that should change the way we view the world. Instead of imagining the future as a line with points, I like to imagine the future is like physical territory. A vast landscape of opportunity to be shaped and molded by all of us. Every living creature, forced into claiming some small piece of it, driven by instinct, survival, and manifest destiny.  

Land is the great battlefield of history. The battlefield for technology however, is time. 

It is a fight for the future. 

And for those keeping score, the Crypto Wars have already started. 

The observant will notice that the overarching narrative is shifting, the largest players are evolving and setting down roots, and the endgame is an established canon of AAA Web3 projects that will be considered the Meta’s and the Amazons of the world - the final iteration of humanity’s monetary technology. As the old financial aristocracy scrambles to remain relevant, launching neutered CBDCs and tacking blockchain buzzwords onto stale economic policies, the digital renaissance continues unabated, and the French themselves could not have sparked a bigger revolution. And whether they realize it or not, the powers that be have set the stage for their own obsolescence like flippant feudal lords dismissing the significance of the printing press.

Here’s the dagger - the catalyst for the final shift is already here. Nobody is talking openly about it yet except a handful of sweating experts. 

The New Manhattan Project

Quantum Computing is a weapon of mass destruction that threatens the global security infrastructure underpinning all of our financial institutions, military secrets and user data. It is already storming the beaches against our existing encryption standards and instigating a computing arms race that culminates in the instability of our communication channels.

That subject probably deserves its own article. I cannot do justice to the many downstream effects this technology will have without greatly multiplying the length of this paper. But suffice to say that the exponential power of quantum computing is the axis on which this next phase of technical history will turn. A gaping black hole around which multiple simultaneous tech universes will revolve.

The scare has not broken out into the public yet. It is too early to have that conversation, and the news needs to be timed just right to have full effect. The largest, most powerful institutions know what is coming, and are taking steps to harden and extend the shelf life of their protocols. But these steps will only buy them time, and time is on the side of the currencies that receive their namesake from their cryptographic processes.

These major crypto players are not here to ride the hype cycle—they are here to survive the purge. Only the strongest will emerge. Not the ones who cut corners, nor the clever ones who gamed the market, but the architects of the future. The ones translating genius into practice, who will define the next generation of multinationals, shaping the infrastructure of our digital existence.

There will be a tipping point in Quantum Computing that will disrupt traditional banking security and cause a mass migration into the security of cryptocurrencies, finally shifting the balance of power back into the hands of the people. When this event comes, expect to see something for the first time in the industry, a true “hot war” for market share in the world’s newest global financial economy. 

Perhaps I'm wrong, as even the most learned men are apt to be. 

Perhaps we will all hug it out and there will be lasting peace among equals. 

Perhaps the banks and the people will come to an agreement, cryptocurrencies will acclimate into the existing systems, and the status quo will survive, only digitally transformed.

But then again, the ash heap of human history is littered with once-great civilizations that lasted for millennia before descending into ruin. A graveyard full of forgotten men once known for their fierce prowess on the day of battle. A museum full of relics once worshipped and now encased in tempered glass so the children will not smudge them. 

Which, I ask you, of our own, venerated monuments will stand the test of time and the fervent heat of coming combat? And which, one day, leaning on our canes, will we describe to our grandchildren, teary eyed with nostalgia as a once great tower, which almost reached towards heaven. 

That's a question you will have to answer for yourself, as I have.

I wish you good fortune in the wars to come.

-D