# IMF ### [[Alex Gladstein]] on the [[IMF]]: The IMF prints currency to ensure political obedience. Smart countries will be able to break out of this debt prison in the next 5-10 years through Bitcoin mining. https://twitter.com/gladstein/status/1429503349619970053?s=19 QT's an IMF tweet about Special Drawing Rights (SDR's): https://www.imf.org/SDR ![[20210823_145152.jpg]] Country A: Hey I just got these SDRs from the IMF. Can I please swap them for your Bitcoin? Country B: No https://twitter.com/gladstein/status/1429842464131600386?s=19 ## [[Alex Gladstein]] comments on [[IMF]] FUD post on [[Bitcoin]] [[IMF]] tweet: Privately issued cryptoassets like Bitcoin come with substantial risks. Making them equivalent to a national currency is an inadvisable shortcut. Read more in our #IMFBlog by the IMF’s Tobias Adrian and @RhodaWeeksBrown https://twitter.com/IMFNews/status/1431799965521625090?s=19 [[IMF]] Blog post: https://blogs.imf.org/2021/07/26/cryptoassets-as-national-currency-a-step-too-far/ Start of Gladstein thread: https://twitter.com/gladstein/status/1431854021241802753?s=19 1/ This post from the IMF is worth reading. They are hugely concerned about more countries taking a “shortcut” by making Bitcoin a national currency, as they predict this will hamper their global operations 🧵 2/ IMF: “If a cryptoasset were granted legal tender status, it would have to be accepted by creditors in payment of monetary obligations, including taxes, similar to notes and coins issued by the central bank” Yes, that’s precisely the point! 3/ IMF: “Countries can even go further by passing laws to encourage the use of cryptoassets as a national currency, that is, as an official monetary unit (in which monetary obligations can be expressed), and a mandatory means of payment for everyday purchases” They can and will. 4/ IMF: “A cryptoasset might catch on as a vehicle for unbanked people to make payments, but not to store value. It would be immediately exchanged into real currency upon receipt.” A staggering falsehood. ==Millions== use Bitcoin as a store of value in broken economies worldwide. 5/ IMF: “If goods + services were priced in both a real currency and a cryptoasset, households and businesses would spend significant time + resources choosing which money to hold as opposed to engaging in productive activities” Actually it’s simple. Spend the fiat, save the BTC 6/ Eventually merchants will want BTC, not fiat, but citizens will know that at point of sale. They won’t have to spend time “choosing” — and of course, avoiding having their time stolen through devaluation rug-pulls (see: Cuban MLC system) will make them *much* more productive. 7/ IMF: “Similarly govt revenues would be exposed to exchange rate risk if taxes were quoted in advance in a cryptoasset while expenditures remained mostly in the local currency or vice versa” Yes, all fiat is at risk of collapsing against BTC, as it has for the past 12 years. 8/ IMF: “Monetary policy would lose bite. Central banks cannot set interest rates on a foreign currency. Usually, when a country adopts a foreign currency as its own, it “imports” the credibility of the foreign monetary policy...” 9/ “... and hope to bring its economy–and interest rates–in line with the foreign business cycle. Neither of these is possible in the case of widespread cryptoasset adoption.” Bingo. Bitcoin gives citizens the ability to choose a monetary system without devaluation. 10/ Finally the IMF talks about how the [[FATF]] works *so* hard to stop financial crime and how big mean Bitcoin will make its job tougher. In reality the [[FATF]] protects the corrupt elite while advancing an increasingly aggressive financial surveillance state on citizens globally... 11/ Making the FATF’s job more difficult is one of Bitcoin’s most redeeming features. 12/ In short: ![[20210831_073222.jpg]]