That may sound like a weird, tinfoil-hat type of thing to say.
But it’s what’s at stake in the War on Cash.
As we’ve been showing you, governments are planning to seize control of your wealth by getting rid of banknotes and coins.
That means no more Ben Franklins. No more nickels and dimes. Nothing but electronic 1s and 0s in a government database.
In a purely digital-currency world… the feds will be able to track, monitor, and record all your financial transactions.
Worse, your savings will be subject to whatever crazy policies central bankers come up with to cope with the next financial crisis… with little chance of escape.
It’s a term I (Chris) borrowed from currency expert Jim Rickards. As he put it…
When pigs are going to be slaughtered, they are first herded into pens for the convenience of the slaughterhouse. When savers are going to be slaughtered, they are herded into digital accounts from which there is no escape.
As I showed you yesterday, this is a trend already in motion.
China plans to roll out a fully digital version of its currency in November. Canada, Britain, Norway, and Sweden are also looking into purely digital versions of their national currencies.
Today, I’ll show you why these countries are creating a roadmap that other governments – including in the U.S. – will follow.
As you’ll see, that’s good news for folks who own private alternatives to these slaughterhouse currencies… like bitcoin. These are set to become privacy safe havens in the new currency order that’s coming.
Take Harvard professor and former International Monetary Fund chief economist Ken Rogoff. You couldn’t find a more perfect example of an establishment economist.
In 2016, he published a book called The Curse of Cash. The whole thing is about why the U.S. should slowly phase out physical cash from society.
Rogoff says cash just helps criminals and people who want to evade the taxman. Here’s his solution…
All paper currency is gradually phased out, beginning with all notes of $50 and above (or foreign equivalent), then next the $20 bill, leaving only $1, $5, and (perhaps) $10 bills.
In Rogoff’s world, governments run the money system directly. Payments that can be completely hidden from the government are banned.
And his wishes are coming true.
And figures from the Fed reveal that only 6% of all transactions above $100 dollars were made in cash last year.
There are also already strict restrictions on getting cash out of the bank in America.
If you try to withdraw, deposit, or convert more than $10,000 to a foreign currency in cash, your bank automatically reports the transaction to the Department of the Treasury as suspicious.
These are your dollars on deposit. You should be able to move them as you please. But the feds don’t want you to turn them into physical banknotes they can’t monitor.
This makes a cashless society a key part of the coming surveillance state we’ve been warning you about.
But that’s not the only reason the feds want a purely digital currency system. They also believe it will help them keep the stimulus spigots turned on.
High on the agenda are negative interest rates. These are the norm now in Japan and the eurozone. (Just today, the European Central Bank lowered rates to a record sub-zero low of -0.5%.)
And as we’ve been warning you, next time the spaghetti hits the fan in America… the Fed won’t hesitate to cut rates into negative territory.
Today, you can escape central banks’ negative-interest-rate tax by stuffing banknotes under your mattress.
Physical cash carries no interest rate – either positive or negative. That makes it an important escape hatch.
But if everyone is in the digital slaughterhouse, there’s no escape.
With a purely digital dollar, the Fed could program each dollar it issues to become 90 cents after 12 months. That would be the equivalent of a 10% negative rate.
It may seem crazy. But central bankers believe that taxing your savings this way will make you rush out and spend… and boost the economy.
In this scenario, you’d see your savings erode year after year… as the feds try to stimulate economic growth.
Nobody wants to see central bankers turn their savings into a crackpot stimulus tool.
But the feds will claim it’s needed to fight off the next economic crisis. And if history is judge… people are willing to accept a lot of crazy ideas when their backs are against the wall.
Here’s how Legacy Research cofounder Bill Bonner sees it playing out…
When the next crisis comes, the authorities will ban cash temporarily. Then that temporary ban, like so many other “temporary” things in government, will become permanent.
This is not really about money… or even the economy. It’s fundamentally political. It’s just power. It plays into the hands of the elite to a huge extent through control via the government apparatus.
My guess is that it will happen. And it will change the nature of our society in a dark and, to me, ominous way.
Right now, many people prefer to hold physical cash instead of cryptos. Like cryptos, physical cash also offers its users a high degree of privacy.
But in a world where the only alternative is a digital currency the government controls and monitors, we expect to see a surge in demand for bitcoin and other decentralized cryptos.
As crypto investing expert Teeka Tiwari put it yesterday…
Private cryptocurrencies, as opposed to the government version, afford users greater anonymity. And you have scarcity with private cryptocurrencies, which you won’t have with crypto-fiat hybrids. This protects you from having your wealth inflated away by governments and central banks.
Bitcoin, for instance, has a hard cap of 21 million coins. You won’t have that guarantee with crypto-fiat currencies. There will still be a central bank that can fiddle with interest rates and balloon the money supply, causing inflation.
That’s why Teeka says cashless societies will expand the crypto market, not shrink it.
We’ll leave Teeka with the final word on that…
My stance on crypto investing is that you should take small bets across many different projects. Just a few hundred dollars for a position is enough.
This way, it’s not an all or nothing bet where you could possibly lose everything. Instead, it’s an asymmetric bet. If we’re right, you can make 1,000% or even 200,000% on your money. But the most you’ll lose is 100% of a small position.
Right now, the price of not being in this trend is much greater than the price of acting. This asymmetric setup won’t last forever.
To buy certain crypto projects, you’ll need bitcoin. So Teeka’s team put together a simple, one-page guide that shows you how to buy bitcoin.
It also shows you four secure digital “wallets” you can use to store your bitcoin… and where you can trade your bitcoin for other cryptos.
Once you’re ready to get into other cryptos, check out the new video presentation Teeka put together. As you’ll see, there are five coins Teeka believes could turn $500 into $5 million.
It was a core theme at our inaugural Legacy Research Investment Summit in Bermuda last year.
As regular readers know, we were there together with subscribers.
Teeka talked about how cryptocurrencies will bring privacy back to our online lives. And he told us why it makes him so excited about the future of blockchain.
Our tech expert, Jeff Brown, also explained why it’s so important to get off Facebook and its 24/7 surveillance of your digital life.
Technology is set to be a big theme again at this year’s summit in Carlsbad, California.
I’ll be leading a panel discussion with Legacy Research cofounder Doug Casey and Jeff about both the dark side of tech… and about tech’s potential to change our lives for the better.
If you couldn’t secure a spot at this year’s event, don’t worry. It’s not too late to get a livestream ticket.
You’ll be able to watch all the panel discussions and presentations… and get our investment recommendations… from the comfort of your home.
Here at the Cut, we’ll be looking at how to best play the crypto market for profits.
Bitcoin is already up 177% in 2019. And as we’ll show you, Teeka and our other crypto experts at Legacy see more gains ahead.
Regards,
Chris Lowe
September 12, 2019
Lisbon, Portugal