The greatest attribute of Crypto is that it encourages people to question Fiat. Particularly when Central Banks are paving the way for CBDC's without any political mandate.

When I first discovered Bitcoin I was a cynic and didn't mine/ buy any. However I was immediately fixated by it and the debate surrounding it. For the first time in my life I was starting to ask questions of the central bank paper notes and coins I had always known, but never questioned.

Back then this wasn't normal behaviour. One did not question money, one just did what they could to accumulate as much as they could. "Have you ever questioned what that note actually means?" I'd find myself blurting out in public. Only to be met with looks of "what the fuck you on about you fucking nutter?".

At that point, it wasn't so much I'd found Bitcoin, rather I was finding out the bleak reality of the Fiat money I had never thought to question. This wasn't an opt in form of money with finite supply, but a currency I was forced to accept as legal tender with limitless supply. One that had been underpinned by gold under the Bretton Woods system until 1971 when the United States ended the convertibility of the US dollar to gold.

At school, money often featured in education. How to count it, how it been used throughout history, how it was made... but never what it actually was, what stood for or what gave it value. Today when I zoom out on opinion it isn't Bitcoin or indeed any crypto isn't actually the most important thing, rather for the first time I history it's the swell of people now starting question the currency governments legally force them to use.

Without any direct political mandate and without citizens being directly asked iglobal central banks are paving the way to launch central bank digital currencies. Preliminary public consultation on CBDC's is often non-existent or extremely limited. Historically, the way democracy is undermined by governments is by early/ muted announcement with little immediate action, using the passage of time to condition the public into thinking it's already been accepted by society before they gradually take action to phasing it in. This is exactly what's happening with CBDC's today.

Global central banks do not have a mandate from the people to spend time and resources paving the way for Central Bank Digital Currencies... and yet they continue. These are digital currencies you will legally be forced to use and yet the vast majority of world are excluded from any conversation on them. In what could be one of the biggest changes to Fiat money for centuries citizens of any democratic society should have a voice. The fact they disproportionately don't should be a major red flag.

Crypto proponents had the right to optimistic in the same way crypto cynics have the right to be cynical. Open source development, code repositories, public/ decentralised blockchains and ultimately the option to opt in/ out in the free market is about as fair as any form of digital money can get. CBDC's not only won't offer this, currently there's no political mandate central banks should be looking at them at all.

TLDR

If nothing else, crypto has society asking tough questions of fiat money for the first time in decades if not centuries. Questions that we never thought to ask, rarely knew or were never taught. It has us questioning the extent of our freedom, the role of central banks and value of legal tender. This is important as (without any direct political mandate) governments and central banks conspire to roll out fiat 2.0 in the form of CBDC's largely without it citizens ever being asked.

Federal Reserve: we have been exploring the potential benefits and risks of CBDCs from a variety of angles, including through technological research and experimentation. Our key focus is on whether and how a CBDC could improve on an already safe and efficient U.S. domestic payments system.

European Central Bank: We are working with the national central banks of the euro area to look into the possible issuance of a digital euro. It would be a central bank digital currency, an electronic equivalent to cash. And it would complement banknotes and coins, giving people an additional choice about how to pay.

Bank Of England: We are looking at the case for issuing a digital pound. This type of money is known as a central bank digital currency (CBDC)