Operation Choke Point 2.0 Is Positive For Cryptocurrency

By now most are aware of the United States government's attack on cryptocurrency. To say the Biden Administration is not a fan of it is an understatement. We are seeing a concentrated move to stifle the industry.

This has led to the creation of Operation Choke Point 2.0. It is a remake of a program instilled by the Obama Administration, which Joe Biden was a part of. The goal is to cut off cryptocurrency companies from the banking system.

The question is will it be effective? Before getting into that, let us look at what it is.

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Operation Choke Point

This was a concerted effort early last decade to cut certain legal industries off from the banking system. The regulators did not ban doing business with companies in this industries. However, there was a clear message that any banks doing business with entities that dealt in forearms, gambling, or sex work was going to face ramifications.

Keep in mind, we are dealing with legal entities that the administration did not favor. Hence it used the regulators to basically destroy these industries. Of course, that is a bit overstated. What happened is they either went underground or move offshore. The gambling industry basically left the country.

Isn't it ironic that we now see gambling being advertised on professional sport telecasts?

Operation Choke Point 2.0 is a remake of this. The idea is to restrict access by cryptocurrency companies to banking services. As we are surmise, any company that can't gain access to banking services is hindered.

Thus, it is easy to conclude this will be effective. There is a major difference this time around.

We are dealing with cryptocurrency. Operation Choke Point targeted industries that sold their wares for US dollars. They were required to engage in the financial services network to transaction. Established payment systems were utilized as a part of doing business.

The difference here is this: cryptocurrency is money. There are built in payment systems inherent within blockchains. The most basic of banking services, storing, sending and receiving of money, can be done using thousands of different currencies. There are more than a dozen permissionless networks that businesses can use.

Wake Up Call For The Industry

We do have one flaw in the system. The established system is the on ramp into cryptocurrency. When people need to convert to or from fiat currency, engagement with the financial world is required. Here is where banks exert a great deal of influence.

This serves as a wake up call for the industry. For too long we fed the politicians and regulators the idea this is the same ole bull crap, nothing more than green candles creating FOMO. In other words, the idea this was just another Wall Street game was put forth by the industry.

The idea behind Operation Choke Point 2.0 has two goals:

  • people need to convert their crypto to fiat
  • the industry will have no value if fiat money cannot move into it and push prices higher

This is where the flaws in their thinking show through. Of course, the wake up call is how we make the premise they are operating under look foolish.

It is time for the clown show to end. What took place the last few years was a total circus. Now it is up to the builders to step up and take control.

This is how Operation Choke Point 2.0 will be a total failure.

Build Around Them

Whatever the establishment wants to do, we can counter it.

Go back to the premise of cryptocurrency. It is money that allows us to operate without the banking system. That was the main tenet that Satoshi Nakamoto was utilizing when Bitcoin rolled out. From this perspective, nothing has changed.

This means there is a simple answer to destroy the first goal:

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We see this happening in place like Venezuela and Cuba. The first task is to simply create ways to acquire everyday goods and services using cryptocurrency. Ideally, for those on Hive, this will utilize the base layer stablecoin, the Hive Backed Dollar (HBD).

By accepting HBD as payment, shops can offer their wares while opening themselves up to a larger market. The key will be when those entities can start to pay some of their bills utilizing crypto.

The second goal is nothing more than a misguided belief. Cryptocurrency does not require a massive amount of fiat currency rolling in to increase prices. This is a Wall Street belief that puts itself at the center of everything.

We are dealing with technology that is operating online. The major value proposition here comes, not from money, but users. It is the network effect that creates the value.

Markets eventually reflect this. Therefore, the industry needs to truly focus upon the conversion to Web 3.0. This means not supporting the old platforms and moving as much as possible to the projects that are in this category.

Industry Shift

In my view, the industry was misguided over the last half decade. Most of what we saw was focused solely upon the Lambos, mooning, and get rich quick. We were dominated by centralized exchanges (CEX) while development of DEX languished. Liquidity pools are still under utilized as a service offered to the crypto public. Finally, crypto "influencers" all are sitting on Web 2.0, not even engaging with the Web 3.0 communities.

This is the state of the industry.

As long as we play the game utilizing their services, we will lose. Whether it is social media or the banking system, both need to be taken down. This starts with removing each transaction. One payment made using a cryptocurrency such as HBD is one not done using Visa.

This is how we start to tip the scales and counter Operation Choke Point 2.0.

After all, we have our own money.


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(Edited)

Great article. Is anyone working on a HBBoO? (Hive backed barrel of Oil) That might be a better store of value than the US dollar lol

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Interesting idea, I think HBG (gold) or HBS (silver) would be great too.

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I agree. Silver and Gold would be even better than an Oil backed stable coin. I just suggested Oil because I didn't think that there was one yet in the crypto market. Plus Oil is still currently the fuel of progress and likely to hold value as the shit hits the fan.

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However, there was a clear message that any banks doing business with entities that dealt in forearms, gambling, or sex work was going to face ramifications.

The forearm dealers will just start dealing in biceps instead. Whack-a-mole!

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As much as we seek change, we all have roles to play in countering the banking system is of no benefit to us, we are going to have to seek transacting outside the traditional system one way or the other.

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I think the belief has been that the tradfi system is the only gateway to crypto and without it, crypto can't stand on its own. It is what was reflected over the past years in most of the industry since building the infrastructure was considered a hard task.

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Fantastic thoughts there @taskmaster4450, and crypto standing on it's own legs is really what we need and what we must work to create, "one payment at a time", thanks for sharing and stay awesome.



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I don't think they will be able to choke out crypto at all. People will always find alternatives and there is no stopping it. The most they can do is delay things.

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Oh man, Taskmaster, you hit so many damn nails on the head. Let's unpack a few of your major points which I think shed some serious light on the foolishness of the fiat debt system and the political actors who control/are controlled by it.

To be completely honest, I was mentally in a very dark place from 2007-2016, so I was not aware of the original Operation Chokepoint, but, in my research since then, I have learned the ins and outs of what it targeted.

I have friends in the sex work industry. They have told me about the misery of dealing with platforms like OnlyFans, ManyVids, even Tumblr. The payments processors were completely killed. MasterCard was threatened with legal action if they serviced PornHub, so PH started accepting crypto as payment - hilarious because ultimately, I don't believe most "visitors" to that site, which is the most popular porn site, globally, know the first thing about cryptocurrency and why it has been in development.

Gambling was another one. I am all in favor of betting and gambling, as it is a personal choice any adult should be allowed to make on their own volition, with their own money. However, the saturation of advertising during NBA basketball games is annoying as fuck. DraftKings, SportsBet, BetMGM, Bet365, they plaster their logos on everything like feces, almost worse than Big Alcohol and fast food, which have traditionally dominated the advertising space during sportsball matches televised.

I remember learning about Augur, which is decentralized betting/predictions market. The platform was banned in the US to American IP addresses because they bypassed all government and mafia attempts at monopolizing the gambling industry.

The firearms industry is a big deal, especially since this iteration of Operation Chokepoint is targeting them as well - with the recent announcement that Discover Inc would be more-closely tracking and documenting all firearms and ammunitions purchases using their credit cards - with the potential to ultimately ban purchases.

This, more than any fear-mongering about FUD spreading about FedNow or CBDCs, is a bigger problem most people are asleep to. If you can't use your credit card - a debt instrument - to buy a firearm or ammunition, then you have to use - you guessed it - cash or a debit card. Well, as we know, 99% of debit cards in the world are issued by banks or financial institutions (NFC-enabled Lightning Network-compatible debit cards were being worked on last year but the technology isn't viable for most people anyway).

Once the credit card companies get leaned on by the Feds to halt purchases of whatever the government deems "immoral" - that's when critical mass is reached. The government has already banned using credit cards to buy lottery tickets or place bets on sports, it's only a matter of time before they halt all purchases of firearms and ammo with credit.

I work in the service industry, and my employer does not allow purchases of lottery tickets with anything other than cash or debit. It would be so easy to say - no credit for buying alcohol - although then, Big Alcohol would probably step in and say "hell nah" you ain't cutting into our biggest customer base.

Now, as for the need to build OUTSIDE the fiat system entirely, the creation of money mechanism is what the most glaring shortcoming is right now. Hive is a standout, in that, we get paid for curating content, creating content, and commenting/voting on content - as well as receiving passive income from staking Hive as Hive Power, $HBD in Hive Savings, delegating out HP to other accounts.

Obviously, the content creation extends to video - 3Speak, podcasts - HiveLightning, PodPing, Cast.Garden, and pictures - Liketu. The next step is to focus on building out e-commerce, like what Hivelist.io has done, but with a focus on decentralizing the distribution and supply chain - which is an issue as long as people are still depending on the legacy Print-on-Demand companies, like Printful, for example.

This makes the circular Hive economy extremely important!

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