Why the rise of a Bitcoin standard could deter war-making

If nation-states held their reserves in Bitcoin, instead of fiat, they would be less incentivized to go to war, says chief strategy officer at the Human Rights Foundation, Alex Gladstein.

Alex Gladstein, the chief strategy officer at the Human Rights Foundation, says that if Bitcoin was adopted as a global reserve currency, nation-states would be less incentivized to start wars.

According to Gladstein,  the United States was able to sustain its “forever wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan mainly by borrowing capital. That was possible largely because of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy, which has been keeping interest rates relatively low through quantitative easing. 

“We literally print money. We sell bonds to the open market for a promise to pay in the future and we use the income from the bond sales to pay for these wars,” explained Gladstein in his latest interview with Cointelegraph. 

Unlike fiat currency, Bitcoin’s total supply is immutable. That means that if nations adopted it as their main reserve, interest rates on borrowed capital would be much higher. That, according to Gladstein, would make unpopular wars harder for governments to sustain. 

“These forever wars get probably cut out or reduced in a Bitcoin standard,” said Gladstein. 

According to Gladstein, the Russia-Ukrainian conflict could trigger the decline of the U.S. dollar as the dominant reserve currency. As he pointed out, nation-states are looking to reduce their dependency on the greenback after the United States froze Russia’s dollar-denominated reserve in response to its attack on Ukraine. 

“It is forcing a rethink there where governments are like “well, maybe I don’t want all my eggs in one basket. Maybe I don’t want the U.S. government to be able to freeze all my stuff,” said Gladstein. 

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