A Bitcoiner’s Guide to WW3

We know you feel it too. The world seems more fractious, unpredictable, and dangerous than ever. Various conflicts around the globe continue to escalate and the fog of war makes it difficult to predict what comes next and who to trust.

The major concern on everyone’s mind is that these various conflicts might eventually coalesce into another disastrous world war.

Everywhere you look tensions are growing and the war drums grow louder.

In Eastern Europe the conflict between Russia and Ukraine continues to grind on. Now in its third year, it has claimed over 300,000 lives and despite countless political promises, meaningful peace talks still feel a long way off.

In Asia, North Korea is becoming increasingly provocative with missile tests over Japan and the deployment of 10,000 troops to support Russia, pushing South Korean officials to openly debate whether they should pursue their own nuclear weapons programme.

In the Indo-Pacific, China continues to perform naval drills near Taiwan suggesting a growing risk of conflict, as many predict China will attempt a forceful reunification in the coming decade.

And In the Middle East, Israel is now engaged in direct conflict with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and now Iran as well. Last week’s events in the region saw Israel launch airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear and military sites, and in retaliation Iran launched over 100 ballistic missiles on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. By now the whole region looks to be on the brink of all-out war.

There are flare-ups everywhere, Europe is actively re-arming, the US will be facing political pressure to join the fray, and in an unexpected move the UK has for some reason decided to declare war on itself. 

You’ll be pleased to know that we aren’t going to try and unpick all the various conflicts or choose sides in any of them or try to predict the future. We’re a company focussed solely on Bitcoin education and individual empowerment. There are enough political commentators and war pundits as it is.

Nonetheless, it’s undeniable that the world feels like a tinderbox right now and the most frustrating thing about it is how entirely predictable it all is. As explained in a previous article, perpetual money printing enables perpetual war. The missiles will continue to fly until we defund the state and move to a Bitcoin standard.

So, rather than focus on things we can’t control, this week let’s focus on what we can.

Let’s explore how a Bitcoiner can best prepare themselves for a more confrontational and unpredictable world and how to best prepare to ensure the safety of your top priority, your family.

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Bitcoin Basic Training

Global conflict brings with it savage consequences that go beyond the obvious tragedies that take place on the battlefield. Consequences that can last for decades after the fighting has finished.

The only way to navigate the stability that war might bring is to adequately prepare for it. Let’s look at some of the ways you can do that.

Avoid War Time Inflation

War is expensive.

Ballistic missiles like the ones being launched by Iran toward Israel each cost in the region of $80,000 to $3m. They fired 100 of them. We’ve all heard people being accused of setting fire to their money, but nation states have graduated to blowing it up.

They spent somewhere in the region of $8m – to $300m in mere hours.

Where do you think that money comes from? The state produces no revenue. All that money comes from private citizens in the form of taxation. Either via direct taxation, or by simply printing more money at the central bank and eroding your savings.

Money printing to fund war will erode the purchasing power of any nation that engages in it. The only way to avoid it is to upgrade your money to one with a fixed supply that can be manipulated by no-one.

If you’re not interested in funding war, you need to adopt Bitcoin.

Eliminate Counterparty Risk

Holding Bitcoin will protect you from wartime inflation, but only if you’re holding it yourself. In an unstable environment leaving your Bitcoin with third parties is an extremely risky thing to do.

During periods of war, desperate governments will stop at nothing to fund their insatiable war machines. If they inflate their currencies away to nothing, where do you think their lust for more destruction will lead them next?

Bitcoin.

Any of your Bitcoin being held or managed by a third-party custodian runs the risk of being co-opted and stolen by the state. You’re only ever one announcement away from the state taking your Bitcoin under the guise of ‘national security’. Placing your trust in custodians is a risk you can’t afford to take. They will bend the knee and comply with the state to save themselves at your expense.

In a world this divided and unpredictable, taking full self-custody of your Bitcoin is an absolute non-negotiable.

Spread Your Seed…. Phrase(s)

One of the biggest challenges people face during times of global instability is the risk of losing access to their home or having to relocate quickly without much time to prepare.

For someone looking to self-custody their Bitcoin, this can create real challenges. If you need to relocate quickly then you may lose access to your home and all your worldly possessions. If that includes your devices and your seed phrase, then you could end up with a serious problem when it comes to accessing your Bitcoin.

You need to be thinking up strategies that would allow you to restore access to your Bitcoin even if you lose access to your home, your devices or even your own country.

The best way to do this is geographic distribution. By distributing critical information in more than one physical location you can minimise the risk of losing access completely and ensure there is always a way to access your Bitcoin.

Just make sure that when you do, you put measures in place to make sure you don’t inadvertently give access to your Bitcoin to someone else.

Encrypt & Backup Critical Data

It’s always essential to have a sensible plan in place for encrypting and backing up any data that you can’t afford to lose, and the importance of this increases ten-fold in a war time environment.

Storing unencrypted data locally on a single device is simply asking for trouble. If you lose access to that device or it gets sufficiently damaged, then important information you want to keep safe can become permanently irretrievable. And if the data is unencrypted then anyone who can gain access to that device either in person or remotely can access your private information.

It's important you learn the skills required to encrypt and decrypt your data to keep it safe from prying eyes, and you need to develop a coherent back-up strategy so you’re never relying on a single copy.

One option would be to make use of cloud services. Just remember that they can see any data you store with them, so if it’s sensitive, you must make sure it’s fully encrypted. Also bear in mind that you are relying on someone else’s servers to store your information. You can’t rely on them entirely because if those servers are targeted by malicious actors, then your data can be put at risk as well.

Everybody’s circumstances and requirements may be slightly different, but regardless of your setup, you must encrypt your important data, and you must develop a coherent back-up strategy to protect it properly. You could use cloud-based providers, or you could dive into the world of sovereign computing and use your own servers, or you might decide to use a blend of both.

Whatever approach you take, the most important thing is that you put a strategy in place.

Test Your Setup, Your Devices & Yourself

One big mistake we see a lot of Bitcoiners make is creating their self-custody setup and then never touching it again.

It’s an easy mistake to make, especially if you’re planning on hodling for the long term and don’t regularly make everyday Bitcoin transactions. The trouble is, this can open you up to all sorts of problems that might go unnoticed until you do need to access your Bitcoin again.

If you haven’t touched your setup in a long time, you might find your devices no longer work, or simply that your skills have gotten rusty and you’re not quite sure how to use your hardware device or send and receive transactions. If you need to use your Bitcoin urgently, you really don’t want to find yourself in that situation.  

When you’re securing significant wealth in Bitcoin, then you need to be testing yourself and your setup regularly. You should be asking yourself questions like:

- If your hardware wallet is unresponsive, could you restore your setup from seed onto a new device?

- If you needed to move your Bitcoin to a new wallet, would you know how to recreate your setup from scratch?

- If your laptop stopped working, can you restore access to all your critical files, access back-ups and get back to where you need to be with minimal pain?

If those kinds of questions make you a little nervous, then you probably need to spend a bit more time training until these skills and the tools you use become second nature. It makes a lot more sense to cement these skills under normal circumstances rather than find yourself struggling with them when you’re under pressure.

We always encourage our clients to get involved with our regular Bitcoin Bootcamp sessions, so they remain sharp and never find themselves in this situation.

Bolster Your Cyber Security

Warfare is increasingly moving away from being kinetic and becoming more and more digital. Missiles and bullet will continue to fly but nation states are increasingly looking for ways to disrupt their opponents digitally.

While you may not always be the preliminary target in these kinds of situations, the reality is that nation state level funding is being poured into developing ever more sophisticated viruses and malware. As you might expect, it’s only ever a matter of time before these tools find their way into the hands of bad actors that will happily target citizens as well.

People at large significantly under index the risk posed to them from digital threats. Because they feel less tangible, people don’t perceive them as being as dangerous as they truly are. The reality is that with the right malware attackers can drain your funds, steal your private information, and even use your devices to record you and track your whereabouts. Leaving your digital life unprotected leaves you open to financial theft, blackmail, and even physical threats.

In the modern world it’s imperative that you start taking your cybersecurity much more seriously. As warfare increasingly moves online, you can’t be roaming the battlefield unarmed.

Setup a Plan B Residency

We sincerely hope that the war drums quieten down and that rising global tensions start to abate, but as realists, we fear this trend is likely to continue for some time yet.

As the fiat money system creaks and moans under the weight of unsustainable debt, central bankers and politicians need a suitable excuse to print a whole lot more money while keeping everyone’s focus elsewhere on a common enemy. COVID provided ample cover in 2020 but now they need something far more dramatic.

Now it’s time for something tried and tested. Now it’s time for war. 

During these moments in history, all bets are off, and chaos ensues. There is no telling what mad antics our deranged ‘world leaders’ will engage in and to what extent it will impact us. Even if kinetic war doesn’t reach your shores directly, the fallout certainly can and society around you may become irrevocably changed.

In this situation, the best insurance policy you can have is protecting your wealth using Bitcoin in self-custody. The second-best is increasing your options by securing the right to relocate somewhere more peaceful and less likely to get wrapped up in the chaos with a Plan B residency or citizenship.

When your countries’ politicians are making bold statements and rattling the war sabre, it’s extremely reassuring to know you can leave in an instant and protect your family if you ever need to. 

Be Prepared – The Bitcoin Way

Bitcoin is an exceptionally powerful tool for protecting your interests. Not only does it protect your wealth from debasement, theft or censorship, it can also defund the state and finally put an end to the era of senseless forever wars that are caused by and funded by central banker’s counterfeit money.

If you want to protect your wealth, secure your family’s future, and start putting your government on a much tighter leash, then you need to learn how to use Bitcoin to its full potential with no third-party involvement.

Our experts can get you up to speed and fully trained in just a matter of weeks, putting you in the position to be able to secure your Bitcoin, your data and devices and ensure you have the skills you need to protect your family now and in the future.

The only people who will remain unprepared are the ones who don’t take action. Don’t let that be you and schedule a free 30-minute call with one of our team to get your training started.