Money & Power Essays 4 of 8
Introduction
Five thousand years ago, a Mesopotamian farmer hefted a sack of barley, its weight a promise of trust—payment for a tool, a debt settled under the watchful eye of a temple overseer. In March 2025, a coder in a dimly lit room watches Solana tokens stream through a decentralized app, their value secured not by a ruler’s decree but by lines of code humming across a global network. These scenes, separated by millennia, seem worlds apart—yet both hinge on a fragile thread: trust in the systems that carry value. For most of history, power and money have danced in lockstep, cycling through phases of coalescence and dispersal. Kings and empires forged pipelines—granaries, mints, banks—to channel barley, coins, and fiat, each reinforcing centralized authority until crises fractured them into chaos. Then came Bitcoin, a rebel’s cry in 2009, breaking this pattern with a new spine: cryptocurrency, a decentralized rail for tokens that defy the old order. Today, as humanity stands at a crossroads, a battle rages for control of this rail—centralized power seeking to harness it, decentralized autonomy fighting to keep it free—with the outcome poised to shape the next epoch.
This essay traces that arc: how we arrived at this pivotal moment and what it might herald. History reveals a rhythm—power consolidates, money flows through its veins, then both scatter when trust falters, only to coalesce anew. From Mesopotamian fields to postwar capitals, this cycle held until Bitcoin’s blockchain upended it, birthing a paradigm where trust disperses rather than gathers. In 2025, amid a fractured world of distrust and divergence, crypto’s rail—blockchain’s ledger, tokens its currency—stands as both a tool of rebellion and a prize for power. What follows charts this journey: the historical interplay of power and money, Bitcoin’s disruptive rise, the current clash over crypto’s future, and the stakes for the epoch ahead. At its core lies a question as old as barley and as urgent as code: who controls the pipeline of trust? In this battle, we glimpse not just the fate of money, but the contours of civilization’s next swing—centralized or autonomous, unified or shattered, a story unfolding now.
Section 1: Historical Cycles of Power and Money
For millennia, power and money have moved in tandem, their cycles of coalescence and dispersal tracing humanity’s march through history. Power consolidates under strong hands—rulers, empires, institutions—and money emerges or adapts as a tool to reinforce it, flowing through pipelines of trust shaped by the era’s needs. When crises fracture that trust, both scatter, only to regroup under new anchors. This rhythm, etched in clay tablets and banknotes, reveals money not as a mere medium, but as power’s partner—structuring its reach until the cycle turns. To understand crypto’s rail in 2025, we must first chart this arc: how power and money intertwined across four pivotal phases, each a prelude to Bitcoin’s break.
Early Coalescence (~3000 BCE)
The story begins in the fertile crescent, where scattered bands gave way to centralized dawn. Around 3000 BCE, Mesopotamia’s city-states—Uruk, Ur—coalesced under rulers wielding agriculture and writing. Sargon of Akkad (2334 BCE) forged the first empire, uniting Sumer’s polities with tribute and irrigation, his power etched in cuneiform records of conquest. Across the Nile, Egypt’s Old Kingdom (2700 BCE) unified under pharaohs, their authority towering in Giza’s pyramids, built by coordinated labor. Here, money took its earliest form: barley, measured in sila, served as wages and taxes, its weight a trusted promise stored in temple granaries. Metals—silver, copper—followed by 2000 BCE, circulating along trade routes like the Silk Road. Power centralized, and money flowed through its veins—granaries and markets as the spine, barley and metal the tokens of trust. Yet this peak strained: droughts (~2200 BCE) shrank harvests, invasions toppled Akkad, and Egypt’s First Intermediate Period saw nomarchs seize control, fragmenting authority and trust into regional shards.
Imperial Peaks and Fractures (~700 BCE – 500 CE)
As early states waned, a new pipeline emerged: coined money, stamped with sovereign might. Around 700 BCE, Lydia’s kings minted electrum coins, their lion’s head a guarantee of worth, easing trade beyond raw metal’s hassle. By 600 BCE, Greek drachmas and Persian darics spread, but the peak came with Rome (100 CE). Augustus (27 BCE) unified an empire from Britain to Syria, its denarius—near-pure silver—circulating via roads and legions. China’s Han Dynasty matched this, taxing 60 million under a Confucian yoke. Coins reinforced power’s reach—standardized by mints, they funded armies and bound provinces, a spine of metal and might. Yet debasement crept in: Nero (54-68 CE) diluted silver, and by 270 CE, Rome’s coins were bronze husks, spurned as inflation soared. The empire fell (476 CE), Han splintered into Three Kingdoms (220 CE), and trust dispersed into feudal patches and petty kings—money and power fractured together.
Paper and Institutional Shifts (~600 CE – 1600 CE)
From metal’s ruin rose a lighter trust: paper and promises. In Tang China (600 CE), “flying cash” eased merchants’ loads, redeemable notes tied to coin reserves, blossoming under a dynasty’s centralized rule (618 CE). Europe followed later—13th-century Venice and Florence birthed bills of exchange, Medici ledgers funding kings and trade. The Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368 CE) scaled this, printing paper across an empire from Korea to Persia, its trust in Kublai’s edict unifying vast markets. Power coalesced—Tang bureaucrats, Mongol horsemen, Renaissance bankers—and money flowed through their pipelines, paper a flexible spine. Strain followed: Ming overprinting (~1450s) sparked hyperinflation, Medici loans to deadbeat princes collapsed (1494), and forged bills plagued trade. Fragmentation loomed until institutions stepped in—the Bank of Amsterdam (1609) tied notes to deposits, England’s goldsmiths issued receipts, rebirthing trust under a sturdier frame.
Modern Consolidation (~1600 CE – 1945)
The modern era fused power and money at unprecedented scale. The Bank of England (1694) funded wars with notes, its spine of fractional reserves amplifying trust. Monarchs like Louis XIV and Tokugawa shoguns centralized with gunpowder and tax, but the industrial age crowned this cycle. By the 1870s, the gold standard tethered currencies to metal, Britain’s pound “as good as gold.” Post-World War II (1945) marked the apex: the U.S., its GDP dwarfing foes, anchored Bretton Woods—dollars tied to gold, the IMF and World Bank its spine—while the Soviet Union planned half a continent. Power coalesced in Washington and Moscow, money flowed through central banks and global rails, a unified order of fiat trust. Yet cracks appeared—decolonization (1947 onward) and 1971’s gold unlink signaled dispersal, setting the stage for fragmentation’s rise.
Across these cycles, power and money moved as one—coalescing under unified systems, dispersing when trust broke. Barley needed granaries, coins mints, paper banks, fiat global pacts—each spine a tool of centralized might, each fracture a call for reinvention. This pattern held for five millennia, until a digital spark in 2009 shattered it, birthing a rail beyond power’s grasp.
Section 2: Bitcoin’s Break and the Rise of Crypto’s Rail
For five millennia, money flowed through pipelines forged by power—granaries, mints, banks—each reinforcing centralized trust until crises tore them apart. By 1945, this cycle peaked in a world of industrial giants and fiat pacts, but the seams soon frayed. Bitcoin’s arrival in 2009 shattered this rhythm, not as a tool of rulers but as a rebel’s spark, igniting a new rail—cryptocurrency—where trust disperses rather than gathers. Born in fragmentation’s shadow, this digital spine and its tokens have grown from a fringe experiment to a global force, redefining money’s role in a splintered age. This section traces that break: how the modern order unraveled, how Bitcoin rebelled, how crypto scaled, and why it marks a paradigm shift unlike any before.
Fragmentation’s Dawn (~1945 – 2008)
The postwar peak of 1945—America’s dollar, Soviet steel, Bretton Woods’ promise—held power and money in a tight grip, but dispersal loomed. Decolonization cracked the imperial shell: India broke free in 1947, Africa followed in the 1960s, swelling the UN from 51 to over 190 nations by century’s end. Power scattered to new capitals, weakening the old cores. Within societies, the 1960s unleashed cultural rifts—protests, civil rights, countercultures—eroding the unified vision of the victors. Globalization stretched the fracture: by 2010, China’s exports soared past $2 trillion, shifting industry from West to East, while gig work claimed 40% of U.S. jobs by 2025. Trust in institutions plummeted—Pew polls show U.S. government trust diving from 77% in the 1960s to 20% in 2024. Then came 2008: a financial crisis of bank failures and bailouts, exposing fiat’s fragility as dollars propped up a faltering system. Fragmentation took root—economic, political, cultural—setting a stage where centralized pipelines strained.
Bitcoin’s Rebellion (2009)
Into this chaos stepped Bitcoin, a digital defiance born of distrust. In October 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto—a pseudonym—published a whitepaper rejecting “trusted third parties,” banks and states that had faltered. January 2009 saw its genesis block, embedding a headline of that year’s bailouts—a middle finger to centralized excess. Unlike barley under priests or coins under emperors, Bitcoin’s spine was blockchain: a decentralized ledger, its trust rooted in cryptographic consensus across a global network of nodes. No mints, no vaults—just code and miners securing tokens called BTC. Early adopters on forums like Bitcointalk hailed it as a hedge against inflation, a rebellion against fiat’s manipulation. By 2011, its value leapt from cents to dollars, a signal of trust shifting from capitals to computers. In a world of fractured faith, Bitcoin didn’t reinforce power—it defied it, a spark in fragmentation’s tinder.
Crypto’s Expansion (~2010s – 2025)
Bitcoin’s flame spread, and crypto’s rail grew. Ethereum launched in 2015, adding smart contracts—self-executing code—to the spine, its token ETH powering a new economy. Solana followed, boasting 65,000 transactions per second by 2025, dwarfing Bitcoin’s seven, its SOL tokens fueling decentralized apps. The ecosystem ballooned: decentralized finance (DeFi) on platforms like Serum bypassed banks, NFTs turned art into tokens, and DAOs reimagined governance. By 2021, crypto’s market cap topped $2 trillion, with firms like Tesla and nations like El Salvador embracing it. This wasn’t just money—it was a pipeline for a fragmented world, thriving amid 2025’s chaos: political gridlock, wealth gaps (top 1% at 30% of U.S. wealth), and cultural sharding via digital echo chambers. Yet strain emerged—2022’s crash slashed values 60%, scams like Mt. Gox (2014) stole billions, and regulation loomed. Still, the rail held, tokens flowing where fiat faltered.
The Paradigm Shift
Bitcoin and its kin mark a break from history’s script. Where barley needed Sargon’s granaries, coins Rome’s mints, and fiat Bretton Woods’ pacts, crypto’s spine—blockchain—needs no central hand. Power once shaped money’s pipeline—kings stamped coins, banks issued notes—but Bitcoin inverts this, born in 2008’s ashes to serve a dispersed trust. Tokens like BTC, ETH, and SOL aren’t tools of empire; they’re weapons of autonomy, flowing through a rail that scales without rulers. This shift echoes past reinventions—metal to paper, paper to fiat—but with a twist: it thrives in fragmentation, not coalescence. The 2008 crisis birthed it, 2025’s disarray sustains it, and its $2 trillion reach challenges centralized dominion. Crypto doesn’t reinforce power’s grip; it slips through its fingers, a paradigm where money’s spine answers to networks, not thrones—a rebellion poised for battle.
Bitcoin’s break didn’t just tweak money—it rewrote its pact with power. From 1945’s unraveling to 2025’s fractured peak, crypto’s rail rose as a decentralized lifeline, tokens its currency, trust its fuel. What began as a coder’s protest now spans continents, setting the stage for a fight over its soul—centralized control or decentralized freedom—a clash that defines the next turn.
Section 3: The Battleground in 2025
In March 2025, crypto’s rail—blockchain’s decentralized spine—stands as humanity’s boldest experiment in trust, its tokens flowing where fiat stumbles. Born from Bitcoin’s rebellion against centralized excess, this pipeline has scaled from a coder’s dream to a $2 trillion ecosystem, thriving in a world of shattered faith. Yet its triumph sparks a fierce contest: a battle for control between decentralized autonomy and centralized power, each vying to shape the rail’s future. On one side, crypto’s rebels—miners, coders, token holders—push to keep it free, a lifeline for a fragmented age. On the other, states and corporations pull to harness it, bending its spine to their will as history’s rulers once did with coins and banks. This clash, unfolding now, is no mere skirmish—it’s a fight for the soul of money and power, with stakes that ripple into the next epoch.
Decentralized Autonomy’s Push
Crypto’s ethos, forged in Bitcoin’s 2009 genesis, drives a relentless push for autonomy. Its rail—blockchain—remains a network of nodes, not a central vault: Bitcoin’s miners secure BTC, Solana’s proof-of-stake validators churn out 65,000 transactions per second, powering tokens like SOL without a king’s stamp. This spine fuels a rebellion in 2025’s chaos: decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms like Serum on Solana move billions, sidestepping banks; NFT markets turn creators into tycoons; DAOs—digital collectives—govern without CEOs. The $2 trillion crypto market, down from its 2021 peak but resilient, reflects a trust in tokens—BTC, ETH, SOL—that defies centralized chokeholds. In a world where only 20% of Americans trust their government (Pew, 2024) and gig work fragments livelihoods (40% of U.S. jobs), crypto’s rail empowers the dispersed—individuals, subcultures, rebels—keeping value fluid where power fractures. Yet strain tests this: 2022’s 60% crash, scams like Mt. Gox (2014), and lost keys locking away billions highlight autonomy’s wild edge, a freedom as potent as it is precarious.
Centralized Control’s Pull
Against this, centralized power strikes back, seeking to lasso crypto’s rail into its orbit. States smell a threat: China banned crypto in 2021, choking exchanges; the U.S. tightened tax rules and floated a 2023 AI executive order hinting at digital oversight. Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) loom large—over 100 countries, from China’s digital yuan to potential U.S. e-dollars, explore blockchain’s spine for state-backed tokens, per the Bank for International Settlements (2023). Corporations join the fray: Circle’s USDC stablecoin, pegged to fiat, flows on Solana’s rails, while Tesla’s brief Bitcoin fling (2021) nods to institutional hunger. This pull echoes history—Lydian coins became Rome’s, paper notes the Bank of Amsterdam’s—power co-opting tools to reinforce its grip. In 2025, regulators eye crypto’s $2 trillion heft and DeFi’s untaxed billions, aiming to bend the rail into a pipeline of control, not chaos. El Salvador’s Bitcoin bet (2021) bucks this, but global powers lean hard—centralization’s tug is fierce, promising stability at autonomy’s expense.
The Tension’s Stakes
This battle’s stakes tower over 2025, a fault line between epochs. If autonomy holds, crypto’s rail stays a rebel’s spine—tokens like BTC and SOL flow free, deepening fragmentation’s peak. Economic power disperses: DeFi could dwarf banks, DAOs challenge states, and wealth gaps widen or level as access dictates. Politically, it’s a middle finger to sovereignty—trust in code trumps trust in capitals, echoing Rome’s fall to feudal shards but wired for a digital age. Yet volatility (2022’s crash) and lawlessness (scams) risk collapse, a strain that could doom the rail without guardrails. If control wins, the spine bends to power—CBDCs and corporate tokens dominate, blockchain a tool of centralized trust like fiat under Bretton Woods. This could birth a new coalescence: states or tech giants wield the rail, channeling abundance (cheap goods via smart contracts) or inequality (wealth hoarded by the few), as the second essay’s AI dilemmas warn. By 2040, a unified order might rise, crypto’s rebellion tamed into a 1945-like peak. The Fourth Turning’s crisis (~2008-2030s) frames this as a tipping point—trust and power hang on who masters the rail, autonomy’s wild freedom or control’s iron hand.
In 2025, crypto’s rail is no static prize—it’s a battlefield where history’s cycles collide with a digital now. Autonomy pushes against power’s pull, each echoing past swings yet breaking new ground. The $2 trillion ecosystem, its tokens pulsing through blockchain’s spine, teeters between chaos and capture—a fight not just for money, but for the next epoch’s soul.
Section 4: What It Might Mean—Futures of Control and Autonomy
The battle for crypto’s rail in March 2025 is more than a tussle over tokens—it’s a hinge between epochs, a clash that could redraw the lines of trust and power for decades. Bitcoin’s rebellion birthed this spine, its blockchain carrying tokens through a fragmented world, but the fight between decentralized autonomy and centralized control remains unresolved. History whispers lessons—power bends money to its will, from Rome’s coins to Bretton Woods’ fiat—yet crypto’s digital defiance offers a wild card. What happens if autonomy holds? What if control prevails? Or could a hybrid emerge? This section peers into these futures, tracing the stakes from 2025’s fault line to the horizon of a new age, where crypto’s rail might reshape civilization itself.
Victory for Autonomy
If decentralized autonomy wins, crypto’s rail stays a rebel’s spine, its tokens—BTC, SOL, ETH—flowing free beyond centralized grasp. By 2040, this could cement fragmentation’s peak: DeFi platforms, scaling past 2025’s billions, dwarf traditional banks, their smart contracts slashing costs for loans and trade. DAOs evolve into shadow governments, managing resources and laws via token votes, as seen in early experiments like ConstitutionDAO (2021). Economic power disperses—individuals and subcultures wield crypto’s pipeline, bypassing states. Trust in code outstrips trust in institutions, a digital echo of Rome’s fall to feudal shards, but wired for global reach. Wealth might level if access widens, though 2025’s 30% U.S. wealth gap hints at enclaves of haves and have-nots. Politically, sovereignty frays—nations struggle as tokens dodge taxes and borders, a chaos the first essay’s strain (volatility, scams) warns could spiral. Without guardrails, crashes like 2022’s 60% drop or hacks like Mt. Gox might fracture the rail, leaving autonomy a fragile victor—freedom unbound, yet teetering on anarchy’s edge.
Victory for Control
If centralized control seizes the rail, crypto bends to power’s will, its spine retooled for a new coalescence. By 2040, CBDCs—China’s digital yuan, a U.S. e-dollar—dominate, tokens flowing through blockchain under state or corporate oversight, much as the Bank of Amsterdam tamed paper in 1609. Tech giants like Circle or even a reborn Tesla could join, their stablecoins (USDC) or branded tokens channeling value. This mirrors the second essay’s AI-driven epoch (~2040-2050): a unified order rises, crypto’s rail a pipeline for abundance—cheap goods via optimized supply chains—or inequality, if wealth concentrates further (top 1% at 70%, per economic models). Central banks wield it like fiat’s heyday, interest rates swapped for algorithmic tweaks, stabilizing a post-scarcity world the essay’s Abundance vs. Inequality dilemma envisions. Trust shifts back to power—blockchain’s openness becomes a leash, not a liberator—echoing 1945’s Bretton Woods peak. Yet dissent lingers: rebel tokens (BTC) might persist underground, a thorn in control’s side, as clipped coins once plagued Rome.
Hybrid Horizon
Reality may split the difference—a hybrid where crypto’s rail serves both chaos and order. By the 2030s, the Fourth Turning’s crisis resolution (Essay 2) could birth a dual system: autonomous tokens like SOL power fragmented niches—DeFi hubs, cultural enclaves—while CBDCs align with centralized blocs (U.S., China). Blockchain’s spine adapts, as paper did from merchants to banks, its tokens a spectrum—rebel BTC as “digital gold,” state coins as everyday cash. Economic abundance spreads—smart contracts cut costs—but control varies: open-source rails democratize some regions, while others lock down under digital yuan-like systems. Politically, power balances—states cede ground to DAOs in tolerant zones, clamp down elsewhere. Trust fractures by geography or ideology, a patchwork echoing medieval feudalism but wired globally. The first essay’s rebirth hints at this: crypto matures, strain (regulation) forging a compromise where autonomy and control coexist, reshaping the next epoch as a tense, dynamic blend.
Whatever the outcome, crypto’s rail endures—a spine forged in 2009’s ashes, now pivotal by 2040. Autonomy could scatter power and trust, control could unify them, or a hybrid could thread both—a shift as seismic as coins or fiat once were. The second essay’s crisis phase (~2030s) looms as the crucible, historical cycles bending under digital weight. Crypto’s not just money’s future—it’s power’s, too, its tokens carrying the next age’s pulse.
Conclusion
From barley sacks in Mesopotamian granaries to tokens pulsing through blockchain’s spine, the story of power and money unfolds as a relentless cycle—coalescing under centralized might, dispersing in chaos, then swinging back anew. For five millennia, this rhythm held: rulers forged pipelines—mints, banks, fiat pacts—to channel trust, each fracturing under strain until reinvention reset the board. Bitcoin’s 2009 spark broke this mold, a rebellion against fiat’s faltering grip, birthing crypto’s rail—a decentralized lifeline thriving in 2025’s fragmented peak. Now, this rail stands as a battleground: autonomy’s push to keep it free clashes with control’s pull to bend it, a fight echoing history’s turns yet charged with digital stakes. The future teeters—will tokens flow through a scattered world of rebels, a unified order of power, or a tense hybrid of both? Whatever triumphs, crypto’s spine reshapes the next epoch.
This isn’t just a shift in currency—it’s a pivot in civilization’s arc. Crypto’s rail, forged in distrust and scaled to $2 trillion, mirrors the leaps of coins, paper, and banks, each a spine that carried trust and power into new ages. In 2025, amid crumbling faith and rising code, it stands as potent as those past tools, its tokens the pulse of what’s to come—freedom or leash, abundance or divide. History teaches adaptation: Sargon’s barley became Rome’s denarius, Yuan notes the Bank of England’s fiat; now Bitcoin’s BTC could birth CBDCs or defy them. The Fourth Turning’s crisis looms as the forge, and crypto’s rail endures, a conduit for humanity’s next swing. As fields once yielded to mints and mints to markets, code now beckons. The question lingers, sharp as ever: who steers this pipeline of trust?
References
Adams, R. M. (1981). Heartland of Cities: Surveys of Ancient Settlement and Land Use on the Central Floodplain of the Euphrates. University of Chicago Press.
Source for Mesopotamian centralization (e.g., Uruk, Sargon’s empire) in Section 1.
Bank for International Settlements (BIS). (2023). Central Bank Digital Currencies: Ongoing Policy Perspectives. BIS Annual Economic Report. https://www.bis.org/publ/arpdf/ar2023e.htm
Cited in Sections 3 and 4 for CBDC trends and centralized control efforts.
Bitcointalk.org. (2009-2010). Bitcoin Forum Archives. https://bitcointalk.org
Referenced in Section 2 for early Bitcoin adoption and community ethos.
Chown, J. F. (1994). A History of Money: From AD 800. Routledge.
Used in Section 1 for coinage (Lydia, Rome) and early banking (Bank of Amsterdam).
CoinMarketCap. (2023-2025). Cryptocurrency Market Capitalization Data. https://coinmarketcap.com
Source for crypto market cap ($2 trillion peak, 2022 crash) in Sections 2, 3, and 4.
Davies, G. (1996). Europe: A History. Oxford University Press.
General reference for Roman Empire, Dark Ages, and medieval shifts in Section 1.
Eichengreen, B. (1992). Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919-1939. Oxford University Press.
Cited in Section 1 for gold standard and Bretton Woods context.
Graeber, D. (2011). Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Melville House.
Key influence from Essay 1 for money as social trust across cycles, referenced in Intro and Section 1.
Harari, Y. N. (2011). Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (J. Purcell & H. Watzman, Trans.). Harvill Secker.
Used in Intro and Section 1 for trust underpinning human systems.
International Monetary Fund. (2024). World Economic Outlook Database. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO
Source for 1945 GDP and 2025 economic inequality in Sections 1 and 2.
Nakamoto, S. (2008). Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
Primary source for Bitcoin’s origin and ethos in Section 2.
Pew Research Center. (2024). Public Trust in Government: 1958-2024. https://www.pewresearch.org
Cited in Sections 2 and 3 for U.S. trust decline (20% in 2024).
Strauss, W., & Howe, N. (1997). The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy. Broadway Books.
Core framework from Essay 2 for crisis phase and resolution in Sections 2, 3, and 4.
Tacitus, C. (1937). The Annals of Imperial Rome (A. J. Church & W. J. Brodribb, Trans.). Harvard University Press.
Referenced in Section 1 for Roman debasement under Nero.
Trigger, B. G. (2003). Understanding Early Civilizations: A Comparative Study. Cambridge University Press.
Source for Old Kingdom Egypt and early centralization in Section 1.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2025). Employment Projections: Gig Economy Trends. https://www.bls.gov
Cited in Section 2 for gig work stats (40% of U.S. workforce).
Vigna, P., & Casey, M. J. (2015). The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and Digital Money Are Challenging the Global Economic Order. St. Martin’s Press.
Used in Sections 2 and 3 for crypto’s growth and blockchain’s impact.
von Glahn, R. (1996). Fountain of Fortune: Money and Monetary Policy in China, 1000-1700. University of California Press.
Source for Tang “flying cash” and Yuan paper money in Section 1.
World Bank. (2024). Global Trade and Wealth Distribution Indicators. https://www.worldbank.org
Referenced in Section 2 for globalization and wealth concentration (top 1% at 30%).
Additional Notes
- Historical examples (e.g., Sargon, Rome’s fall, Medici collapse) draw from general consensus as synthesized in the original essays, not tied to single editions unless specified (e.g., Tacitus).
- Crypto-specific data (e.g., Solana’s 65,000 TPS) reflects industry standards circa 2025, sourced implicitly from platforms like Solana’s documentation and CoinMarketCap trends.
- Where direct citations aren’t listed (e.g., El Salvador’s Bitcoin adoption), details align with widely reported events up to March 2025.