PCAs Are Coming!  What Are They? How Will They Impact Our Lives? 

Is This For Real, Or Is It Just One Big Elitist Sham? 

Now that we’re coming out the other side of the initial C19 pandemic with the mainstream narrative falling apart, climate change seems to be the hot topic. One strategy introduced to reduce carbon emissions is to issue Carbon Offset Credits to companies in a bid to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. More recently, during the World Economic Forum's Davos Summit, Alibaba President Michael Evans revealed that the elites are working on an individual carbon footprint tracker for consumers. That means you and me. 

As it turns out, many countries worldwide have been researching and developing an individual carbon credit system for over a decade, and it seems they're on the brink of being rolled out. Let’s find out what we need to know about this impending dystopian system and why it’s being implemented. We’ll start with when Personal Carbon Allowances (PCAs) became a concept and who’s behind it.

Image source: MyCarbon.co.uk

When Did It All Begin?

The history of individual carbon credit allowances began with the United Nations' first Earth Summit, held in Rio De Janeiro in 1992. The Summit was significant because it laid the groundwork for the collective climate action of the countries in the UN. Later that year, UN countries signed the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to reduce and eventually eliminate carbon emissions to fight climate change. As of 2020, 192 countries have signed up for the Kyoto Protocol, which is basically the entire world. 

Interestingly, the Kyoto Protocol laid the foundation for the issuance and trading of carbon credits. So when the concept of carbon credits was introduced, it was intended for institutions, not individuals. However, it didn't take long for the concept of carbon credits to be applied to individuals. The catalyst was British Petroleum or BP, the oil company that used the idea of an individual carbon footprint for its massive marketing campaign in the early 2000s; it even created an individual carbon footprint calculator. 

Obviously, these ongoing marketing campaign's purpose was to blame climate change on consumers, not corporations. After all, were it not for the demands of the consumer, then these corporations would not have to pollute as much as they do to provide the goods and services consumers desire. 

Image source: Twitter

United Nations First Experiment

The UN's first global governance experiment, or global control, was called the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which the Millennium Summit established in 2000. 191 UN member states and 22 international organizations agreed upon 8 Millennium Development Goals that were supposed to be achieved by 2015. These included eliminating poverty, combating deadly diseases, and environmental sustainability. 

It appears that BP’s concept of an individual carbon footprint was something that the countries looking to meet their environmental MDGs found interesting. As some countries thought creating an individual carbon credit score for their citizens would help them meet their MDGs, the first wave of academic research emerged in the mid to late 2000s. 

The British government created a legal framework for PCAs in 2008. To take it one step further, according to Wikipedia, “The Climate Change Act 2008 also grants powers allowing the UK government to introduce a personal carbon trading scheme without further primary legislation.”  And similar laws are likely in place in other countries.

Given the concept of a personal carbon allowance has been around for a decade or more, it begs the question of why it’s only surfacing now. The answer seems to be that the UN's MDGs experiment fell short. In 2015, the MDGs were unmet, as environmental issues, deadly diseases, and poverty were still plaguing the planet. 

There are many reasons why the MDGs were limited. Still, the main three factors were a lack of funding and coordination and the 2008 financial crisis, which threw many countries into chaos in the following years. So the UN did what every institution does when it fails, rebrand and try again.
 

Image source: United Nations

The Second Experiment – Rebranded

In 2015, the UN announced its second experiment in global control called the sustainable development goals or SDGs, which superseded the MDGs as per the UN's website. Note this transition didn’t happen overnight. In 2012, the UN set up the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, or SDSN, to figure out what went wrong with the 8 MDGs and ensure that the SDGs, which were increased to 17, were implemented. 

Whereas the 8 MDGs were supposed to be met by 2015, the 17 SDGs are supposed to be completed by 2030. The SDGs are the same as the MDGs, just with more extreme and vague language, probably to allow for interpretations with serious outcomes. You can sum up the SDGs as being the MDGs on steroids because the SDGs are backed by both the public and private sectors. 

The MDGs were backed almost entirely by the public sector, which is a big part of why there needed to be more funding and coordination. Global corporations have no shortage of capital, and they're able to coordinate because their operations transcend borders. More importantly, they can ensure compliance with SDGs without governments having to pass any laws. 

The Plot Thickens

The 17 SDGs are also part of a bigger plot by the UN called Agenda 2030 and the Great Reset, which includes lots more controversial stuff like the Tri-State City in the Netherlands. This involves removing the Dutch farmers from their land and livelihoods under the guise of climate protection. Notably, the SDGs are based on the Environmental, Social, and Governance criteria (ESG) that the world's largest institutions use to guide their investments and operations. 

In theory, the primary benefit of pushing SDGs through ESG is that it makes it possible for these global corporations to crush small competitors and acquire their assets. This is because it won't be possible for small businesses to comply with ESG criteria, and it is arguably the entire purpose of ESG. However, there is a limit to how lucrative this would be for global corporations because they will eventually succeed in acquiring all the resources and customers that exist. 

When that happens, these elites will be confronted with an economic reality that most are aware of, a demographic decline in developed countries. Each year there are fewer and fewer consumers with the kind of capital these global corporations need to continue growing. If you read this article about why you will own nothing and be happy, you'll know that demographic decline is why these Global corporations are slowly trying to make us rent everything instead of owning it.

This makes products more accessible on a global scale and creates a constant stream of cash flow. However, even this Hardware as a Service scheme would only last so long. Eventually, these global corporations will run out of people to rent their products to, and they'll again face the economic reality of demographic decline. 

This would suggest the primary benefit of pushing SDGs through ESG is temporary and short-lived or is it? So what would make it possible for these global corporations to create an economy where they continue to grow regardless of demographic decline? The answer is their Carbon Credits System.

Image source: Global Asset Management 

Carbon Credit System For Companies

As it stands, each carbon credit represents one ton of carbon dioxide emissions that were removed or were never emitted. So, when a company does something that removes or prevents future carbon emissions, such as planting trees or installing solar panels at their business, they are given carbon credits by a governmental authority. 

These carbon credits are then sold to other companies that want to emit more carbon without penalty. This kind of carbon credits issuance, trading, and redemption is done because of environmental regulations and is called the Compliance Carbon Market. Compliance carbon markets in California, Europe, and China account for 99% of all carbon credit trading. 

Image source: S&P Global

The remaining 1% of carbon credit trading happens in the Voluntary Carbon Market. This is where companies looking to emit more carbon voluntarily purchase carbon credits from companies who are voluntarily looking to emit less. This is, of course, done to increase their ESG scores.

Spoiler Alert! As I mentioned earlier, carbon credits are supposed to represent one ton of carbon dioxide emissions that were either removed or never emitted. Well, it's estimated that around 85% of all carbon credits are not reducing carbon, and research suggests they actually increase emissions. 

United Nations Global Carbon Credits Market

During the UN's COP26 climate Summit in Glasgow last year, 200 countries adopted Article 6 of the 2015 Paris agreement. The main takeaway is that it will create a single global carbon credits market that an upcoming UN agency will regulate. 

This “supervisory agency” will also issue “UN-recognized carbon credits to eligible institutions.” It also appears that under Article 6, trades on the UN's global carbon credits market will be tax-free, meaning the global corporations will not only reap the benefit but thoroughly clean up. 

As the goal of carbon credits is to reduce carbon emissions, it’s interesting to note that it will be achieved by slowly reducing the number of carbon credits issued to companies each year. The EU Carbon Market is the largest, and the European Union has a carbon credit reduction schedule on its website, stating, “to increase the pace of emissions cuts, the overall number of emission allowances will decline at an annual rate of 2.2% from 2021 onwards compared to 1.74% currently”.  

As we know, when the supply of something gradually declines, and the demand for it stays the same or increases, prices eventually rise. This is precisely what's been happening to the cost of carbon credits, especially those in the compliance markets. 

And that, folks, is how global corporations can ensure continued growth in the face of a demographic decline. All it takes is a few billion carbon credits issued to them by their friends in government or the United Nations and a bit of supply and demand manipulation through regulation. 

Case in point, according to this article, Tesla earns most of its money by selling carbon credits. Considering Tesla is one of the largest companies in the world, it's more than likely other big brand names will follow suit with this economic phenomenon.  

Image source: Twitter

Individual Carbon Credit System

Now let’s see how we will measure up in the carbon credit equation and what they have in store for us. As I mentioned at the start of this article Alibaba's President and former Goldman Sachs banker, Michael Evans, revealed that [they] meaning other so-called stakeholders on the panel and in the audience at the WEF’s Davos Summit are working on an individual carbon footprint tracker. 

Because Alibaba is a Chinese company, Michael’s comments went viral as people interpreted his remarks to mean they were developing an individual carbon credit system akin to China's social credit system. While it’s true that some corporations are developing ESG scores comparable to China's social credit score, the individual carbon footprint tracker Michael and other wealthy elites are obsessed with is entirely new. In many ways, it's much worse. That’s because almost all the countries at the UN are planning to create an individual carbon credit market practically identical to the one that institutions have today. 

How Will it Work?

Each year, you will be allocated carbon credits that allow you to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide. The possibility of how much carbon you’re issued will depend on your ESG score may be speculation at this stage, however, note that everything stated here has been researched by governments for years and is probably in development in most developed countries.

If you use up your annual carbon allowance before the year is over, for example, by eating too much meat or traveling too much, you will no longer be able to do carbon-intensive things. That is unless you purchase more carbon credits from individuals who have yet to use up their annual allocation. 

If you're wondering how the government will prevent you from purchasing carbon-intensive things, the answer is a central bank digital currency. (CBDC) CBDCs are necessary for an individual carbon credit system to work, as are government-issued digital IDs, which are also prerequisites for CBDCs.

As with the issuance of institutional carbon credits, allocating individual carbon credits will incentivize individuals to minimize their carbon emissions. At first glance, this seems fine, but upon closer inspection, it's easy to see why a carbon credit score is much worse than a social credit score. In a simple social credit score system, you can still get ahead by being a good citizen. In a carbon credit score system, however, the only way we’ll be able to live a good life, or even the life we’ve been accustomed to, is to purchase the carbon credits we need to do things a good life entails. 

This includes going where you want, eating what you want, and living in something that's not a pod. For some, a good life will involve having children. Chances are you'll need a lot of individual carbon credits to do all of the above. The main reason is the Scope 3 Emissions Cap that only currently applies to institutions, which I mention in this article and how it impacts companies. 

And it looks like individual citizens will be next. That's because Michael pointed out that Ali Baba and the other WEF stakeholders are working on a “Scope 3 Emissions Plus,” which will indeed apply to individuals. This means that in an individual carbon credit system, you will probably have to provide enough carbon credits to cover the carbon emissions of your friend traveling to see you. It could be that you have to provide enough carbon credits to cover the future carbon emissions of your children. 

By now, you’ve probably realized that this will make the rich richer and the poor poorer. The poor will live in pods and eat bugs, so they can save up their carbon credits to sell to the rich for food and shelter. In turn, the rich will use these carbon credits to continue living as normal. Furthermore, given that the purpose of carbon credits is to reduce carbon emissions, there’s a great likelihood we’ll see the same decreasing issuance for individuals as they’ve proposed for institutions. In turn, this will increase the price of individual carbon credits and make it more challenging to afford the credits to “live a good life.”

Image Source: Southern Cross University 

When Is This Insane System Coming?

It’s already in play on Norfolk Island, a small island off the coast of Australia. With a population of 6000, it seems that was a perfect place to trial this form of control, and it has had an individual carbon credit System since 2011.

Also, the second region, the European microstate of San Marino, is using Ve Chain to set up its own individual carbon credit system to become the first country to comply with the UN's SDGs. It has a population of around 34,000.  

We can assume that individual carbon credit systems will be rolled out in smaller countries first. This makes sense given that, so far, most of the research and development of personal carbon credit systems has been theoretical, so more actual testing is needed. Beyond that, we will likely see individual carbon credit systems introduced in the next couple of years.

The ‘ESG-induced energy crisis’ will present the perfect opportunity to do this, as governments can use the allocation of limited energy as justification for the rollout. However, PCAs will only be effective once they implement Digital IDs and CBDCs, and given that governments have been openly testing Digital IDs during the pandemic, they will come first. Notably, a recent article about an individual carbon allowance by the WEF blatantly states that the pandemic was a quote test for what's coming and how the elites are amazed at how easily we submitted. 

To add insult to injury, at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27), Michael Sheren, Former Bank of England Senior Advisor, stated that carbon will be very close to a currency; tokenizing nature is next. 

Will the UN and its cohorts succeed in rolling out its sinister global carbon credit scheme? That depends on if it can get all its ducks in a row by 2030, as this is the deadline for SDGs to be achieved. 

History suggests it's unlikely to happen as the UN is in a similar position today as it was with the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis, which was the main reason why the UN's MDGs failed. We are now facing another financial crisis that has only just begun. This means that the full extent of the fallout has yet to come, and we already see cracks form on the international stage. 

Moreover, for the UN’s SDGs to succeed, it needs just about every country to be on board. This is becoming increasingly less likely by the day as conflicts arise between countries and nationalists candidates turn a cold shoulder to globalist organizations. The UN must get every country on board because if people see other countries overseas or even other states within a country that are not abiding by the SDGs, they might compare and contrast their quality of life. 

It happened during the pandemic, with some countries implementing severe restrictions while others did not. More recently, Sri Lanka collapsed under its own weight after it achieved one of the highest ESG scores the institutions’ could offer. It just shows that energy is the economy, and some emissions are required for the world to function.

Image Source: Markethive.com

How Can We Prepare? 

How can we prepare for such a system if it's successfully rolled out? The most intuitive is to hold and use cryptocurrency or any other money outside this dystopian system so we can continue to transact without restrictions or carbon credit tracking. 

The centralized control of carbon credits means the UN and others could limit how many carbon credits you can hold. If they're tokenized, it would be effortless to set these limits. It is also easy to block transactions through CBDCs. This is why using a genuinely decentralized cryptocurrency as a hedge might be a better strategy. 

There are ecosystems that are purpose-built to counter the totalitarian initiatives they’re trying to impose. The crypto and blockchain projects that uphold the interests and fundamental freedom of the people provide the foundation for truth, not propaganda, applying critical thinking and seeing through the shams the self-interested elites are propagating. It’s becoming increasingly clear that there is no climate emergency that warrants these dystopian measures. It's just all about money and control. 

Tim Moseley

Could This Company And Its Cohorts Overshadow Cryptocurrency? Look What's Coming

Wall Street titans such as BlackRock and Goldman Sachs have backed a crypto company that has received more funding than almost every prevalent crypto project. In addition, this firm has funded the federal government's spending and has close connections to the Federal Reserve. It's anticipated that its stock will be listed on exchanges later this year. 

The company is Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, and it seems to be setting its sights on slowly dominating the crypto industry. It’s one company we must be mindful of if we value our financial freedom. 

Circle’s History

Interestingly, Circle didn’t start out as a stablecoin project; its history is rooted in the crypto industry and runs very deep. Circle Internet Financial Inc., or Circle, was founded in 2013 by Jeremiah Allaire and Sean Neville. Jeremy and Sean have been working together for decades to build and then sell or IPO cutting-edge technology companies, notably the Allaire Corporation and Brightcove.

One of Jeremy's oldest videos on YouTube is a presentation he did shortly before leaving Brightcove to create Circle. In this video, Jeremy explains how the final step of building a successful technology company is to exit. In other words, to sell to a more prominent company or list it on a stock exchange. Jeremy Allaire has also been involved with the World Economic Forum for many years and has videos on the WEF’s YouTube channel and a profile on the WEF’s website. 

Circle’s Vision

Jeremy has served as the chairman and CEO of Circle since it was founded, and Sean served as the president of Circle until late 2019, when he stepped down to join Circle’s board of directors. In the beginning, Circle’s focus was Bitcoin payments, similar to other payment companies like Visa and Mastercard, with a vision for bitcoin to become the base layer for a new financial system. However, the concept envisioned was not open and decentralized but closed and centralized. 

To set things in motion, Circle effectively tried to force Bitcoin to fit their vision by pushing for all the altcoin innovations, such as tokenization and smart contracts to the Bitcoin ecosystem. They also urged Bitcoin to increase its block size for scalability purposes, along with the founder of the Bitcoin Foundation, Gavin Andresen, and 60 other corporations. 

The efforts of these entities to increase Bitcoins block size hit their pinnacle in 2017 with the so-called New York Agreement. Furthermore, Digital Currency Group (DCG) reportedly oversaw the New York Agreement.  The DCG conglomerate owns Grayscale and CoinDesk and holds stakes in top crypto projects, including Coinbase and Circle. It’s not surprising that Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong also wanted to increase Bitcoin's block size. In short, 60 corporations tried and failed to convince the Bitcoin Community to increase Bitcoin’s block size. In short, 60 corporations tried and failed to convince the Bitcoin Community to increase Bitcoin’s block size.

Digital Currency Group 

A Rough Start For Circle

In the bull run of 2017, Circle had already raised around $27 million from Goldman Sachs and others. It used this capital to create a suite of crypto services, including an OTC trading desk, and purchased the Poleniex Exchange. Around the same time, Jeremy joined the International Monetary Fund as part of the IMF’s high-level Advisory Group on Fintech. 

For context, the purpose of the IMF is to ensure that the current US-centric financial system continues without interference from cryptocurrencies and other such technologies. Curiously, Circle and other Wall Street-funded crypto companies also held a closed-door meeting with the IMF in 2017, much to the scrutiny of the crypto community, and it seems there have been many meetings since. 

By this time, Circle realized Bitcoin was not the future of payments, although Jeremy still believes BTC is digital gold and could serve as the world’s next reserve currency and has stated he holds mostly BTC and cash. Central banks also hold alternative currencies as part of their balance sheets, with the US dollar declining.  

Since the conclusion that Bitcoin couldn’t be the payment platform, Circle and others turned to Ethereum, the next-best cryptocurrency. Ethereum grew significantly during the previous bull market cycle and established ETH as the second-largest crypto by market cap. They settled on the decision the build a US dollar stablecoin in 2017, and in 2018, Circle raised $110 million from Chinese crypto mining company Bitmain and others to build its stablecoin. 
 
That same year Coinbase and Circle founded the Centre Consortium to set standards for stablecoins issued on public blockchains and to govern the issuance and redemption of the USDC stablecoin. It’s important to note that any entity part of the Centre Consortium can mint and redeem stablecoins. 

The USDC stablecoin had a rough start when it launched in September 2018 because it was in the middle of a crypto bear market by then. So there wasn’t much demand for stablecoins, and USDC's market cap remained flat primarily during this period. 

Subsequently, Circle sold its suite of products and services to focus on its stablecoin in 2019. The buyers included Kraken’s purchase of Circle’s OTC trading desk and Tron founder Justin Sun, who reportedly purchased Poloniex from Circle.

The WEF, FED, and Synthetic CBDCs

In early 2020, Jeremy attended the WEF’s annual conference in Davos, where he preached about the power of programmable money. He also discussed the importance of a partnership between the public and private sectors to “support the development of global stablecoins backed by central bank money.” Circle also published a stablecoin white paper [pdf] for the WEF.

Image source: Circle Blog

In previous interviews, Jeremy stated that the assets backing USDC would inevitably be held at the FED. As a matter of interest, most stablecoins are backed by US government debt. So, when you buy a stablecoin, you are essentially subsidizing the US government spending. That is a bit of a worry, considering many use stablecoins for safety. 

According to Grant Thornton of the Centre Consortium, the USDC in circulation is backed by the following assets: 61% cash and cash equivalents, 13% Yankee certificates of deposit or CDs, 12% US treasuries, 9% commercial paper, 5% corporate bonds, and less than 1% in municipal bonds.

Almost all of the assets backing the largest stablecoins are some form of debt, i.e., money that’s been lent out. If you’re wondering why all these stablecoin companies hold so much debt, the answer is Interest. The companies behind these stablecoins can make money on their clients’ money by lending it. This makes it possible for Circle to make billions of dollars in passive income.

What’s important to understand is that Jeremy’s repeated prediction that the FED will hold USDC reserves relates to a Synthetic Central Bank Digital Currency. (sCBDC). Synthetic CBDCs involve a partnership between a private company, in this case, Circle, and the central bank of a country, the Federal Reserve, to issue a de facto CBDC, in this case, a de facto digital dollar. 

Unsurprisingly, the IMF and the WEF are particularly interested in this synthetic CBDC setup. The question is, which Blockchain will they agree on to power a synthetic CBDC? Will it be a private and permissioned blockchain created by a big bank or a cryptocurrency? Jeremy has consistently posited the prospect of a global stablecoin that will be modeled on the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights or SDR. The SDR consists of multiple national currencies, and Jeremy believes it will eventually include BTC. 

Image source: Coingecko

A Parabolic Shift For USDC

In mid-2020, the USDC’s market cap was on the move parabolically and continued to grow as  USDC expanded to new exchanges and smart contract cryptocurrencies. Algorand was one blockchain that USDC expanded to and seemed to have a very close relationship with both Circle and the Federal Reserve. Interestingly, Circle is based in Boston, Massachusetts, and in the same proximity as MIT, where Algorand founder Silvio Micali is based. 

CBDC reports by the FED note that the Central Bank partnered with MIT to develop its digital dollar and that the FED would begin testing quantum resistance on its would-be blockchain this year. As it so happens, Algorand recently achieved Quantum resistance by introducing State proofs.

Shortly after Circle announced its multi-chain framework, Wall Street veteran and former CLS Bank CEO David Puth was appointed the CEO of the Centre Consortium. You may not have heard of the CLS Bank; however, according to Jeremy, the CLS Bank is the “biggest bank that nobody knows” and, apparently, settles more than $2 trillion of transactions per day between the 70 largest banks on the planet. 

As per the Centre’s blog post, David's job is to ensure “the most significant transformation of the international monetary system since the formation of the Bretton Woods system.” Oddly enough, David recently stepped down from the Centre Consortium to become a senior advisor to Circle, possibly because of Circle's exponential growth, which began in 2021 as Circle raised a staggering $440 million from various crypto VCs, including DCG and FTX. 

During this time, Circle offered high-yield USDC accounts to institutional investors that were returning 8% – 11% yearly, according to an interview with Jeremy from February 2021. This eventually led to allegations by skeptical journalists that Circle was engaging in extremely high-risk, DeFi activities behind the scenes to earn this high yield. Note that this is the same stuff that crypto platforms like Celsius and Voyager Digital did before they went bankrupt. 

Stablecoins Scrutinized Over Collateral Quality

Following the collapse of the crypto market and the appointment of SEC chairman Gary Gensler, stablecoins began to experience a lot of scrutiny, including USDC. The backlash prompted stablecoin issuers to publish details about the assets backing all their billions of tokens in circulation. Paxos came out as the winner for collateral quality, and Circle has since changed the composition of the assets backing USDC to match those of Paxos’s BUSD. As it stands, the USDC in circulation is currently backed by around 80% short-term US Government debt, and 20% is backed by cash. 

Image source: Cointelegraph

Assuming short-term US Government debt means 2-year treasuries, it implies that Circle is earning a yield of around 4% on almost $40 billion of reserves. If you crunch those numbers, that equals over $100 million in pure passive income every month. This incredible potential for passive profit is probably why Circle managed to secure a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) deal for its stock to list on US exchanges.

Towards the end of 2021, Circle started to call for reasonable crypto regulations and seems to have lobbied to that end. The company also continued to expand USDC to other blockchains and started looking into stablecoins for other fiat currencies, notably the Japanese Yen and the New Zealand dollar. 

Also, in late 2021, Terra’s algorithmic UST stablecoin began to gain serious ground in DeFi protocols, where USDC had reigned supreme for almost two years. According to Decrypt, decentralized stablecoins try to avoid governance issues by maintaining their pegs through algorithms instead of through vast reserves of cash and debt. It also means their creation and destruction are done via voluntary free market arbitrage, and nobody can freeze or confiscate these tokens.

Note that all centralized stablecoin issuers have frozen tokens in the past. This occasional freezing of tokens is just the tip of the iceberg because, in a 2020 interview, Jeremy confirmed that Circle has the power to freeze all its stablecoins in circulation. This prospect is disturbing when you remember that Circle has uncomfortably close ties to Wall Street, the IMF, and the WEF. It's also disconcerting to consider that supposedly decentralized stablecoins, like MakerDAO’s DAI, are backed mainly by USDC. MakerDAO’s founder actually called for DAI to drop its peg to get off of USDC after Circle froze a bunch of tokens related to Tornado Cash. 

Digital IDs And BlackRock Emerge On The Scene

In February 2022, Circle announced the release of the Verite platform, which is instrumental in the rollout of digital identities in cryptocurrencies. Two months later, Circle announced that it had received another $400 million of funding in a round led by BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager. BlackRock and circle also entered a “strategic partnership,” which would see BlackRock manage Circle’s cash reserves. 

Image source: Decrypt

BlackRock's buy-in bought Circle’s total funding to well over $1 billion, and Crunchbase suggests that this figure is much higher, though the details of all these investments were apparently not disclosed. In any case, the market cap of Circle’s USDC hit an all-time high of over $55 billion in the aftermath of the collapse of Terras UST and the concerns around Tether’s USDT that arose during the chaos. 

Incidentally, in previous interviews, Jeremy had admitted that both stablecoins were competitors to USDC. As expected, Terra's collapse and the temporary de-pegging of USDT led to renewed calls for stablecoin regulation worldwide. It appears Circle has been involved in influencing the regulations relating to the EU’s final draft of the MiCA Bill. According to CoinBureau, this could be very favorable for Circle, in Europe anyway, and opines that it could also be the catalyst for the next bull run. 

Competition Is Rife

It’s nothing new if Circle is leveraging regulations, as incumbents have often used regulation to prevent competition. Even the Goldman Sachs CEO admitted that “burdensome regulation protects our business from startups” shortly after the bank invested in Circle in 2015. What’s interesting is that  XRP is a top competitor to the global system that Circle and the Centre Consortium are trying to create.

And it’s not just regulations these stablecoin issuers are competing with; Cryptocurrency exchange Binance recently announced it would end support for USDC and has since de-listed Circle’s prominent stablecoin. USDC's market cap has been slipping, but it took a plunge when Binance dropped USDC in September 2022. 

This means that Circle has to sell assets behind the scenes to ensure that the supply of USDC is in line with the lower level of demand for USDC following its de facto delisting. It's well within Binance’s right to make this move, and it just goes to show that crypto is hyper-competitive, and every crypto project and company has its way of cementing itself in the industry. 

In Circle’s case, this involves working with questionable global organizations and expanding on-chain, including issuing stablecoins denominated in currencies besides the USD to appease foreign governments and regulators. At this rate, it's more than likely that every national currency will have its own stablecoin issued by the Centre Consortium, a perfect synthetic CBCD. 

As with USDC, all these synthetic CBDCs will be backed by the government debt of their respective regions. It means we’ll all be subsidizing our government’s spending along with lower interest rates for institutions when the “powers that be” inevitably phase out cash. 

But Wait…There’s More

Image source: Coindesk

More recently, Circle announced that it would expand to five additional smart contract cryptocurrencies and introduce a cross-chain interoperability protocol for its stablecoins. It also announced that it had partnered with Jack Dorsey’s Block to bring USDC to Bitcoin and to think Jack Dorsey is a Bitcoin maximalist! 

Circle is also quickly taking over every smart contract cryptocurrency. With its stablecoin reserves being held by the FED, Circle could potentially have access to unlimited liquidity, aka the money printer. With the money printer in its grip, Circle will have the power to control every proof of stake smart contract cryptocurrency. Case in point, Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin recently admitted that Circle would have the power to decide the future of forks on Ethereum due to its stablecoin liquidity. 

For what it's worth, it looks like Bitcoin’s BTC and physical cash will offer protection from the upcoming dystopia that Circle and its affiliates are not so subtly rushing to roll out. Which begs the question, why else would Jeremy hold most of his wealth in cash and BTC? Maybe, he knows what's coming? 

To Jeremy's credit, he wants stablecoins to be as cash-like as possible, meaning transaction privacy and no KYC. The problem is that the regulators will probably never allow this. As we already know, the institutions' that Circle has aligned itself with explicitly want to take control of every transaction we make forever. 

As mentioned earlier, Circle’s co-founders have a history of building up and then exiting cutting-edge tech companies. This raises the question of whether Jeremy and Sean will do the same with Circle once its stock has IPO’d via the SPAC. Circle could become the most valuable company on the planet if it succeeds in its mission of literally recalibrating the global financial system around stablecoins. 

The only issue with this analysis is that fiat currencies are failing, and stablecoins probably won't help much. Jeremy seems to be highly aware of this, and that is ostensibly why he's so bullish on BTC. As such, it's probably wise to watch whether he leaves Circle after its IPO. If he does, it probably means he knows that Circle will inevitably fail. 

On another note, if you’re wondering which blockchain Jeremy believes will support all of Circle stablecoins, the short answer is all of them. The Circle team seems to be genuinely blockchain agnostic, and Jeremy thinks each smart contract cryptocurrency will have a piece of the financial puzzle. In sum, Circle will probably become the most influential company in cryptocurrency, maybe even the entire world, but it will arguably fail because it's fundamentally leveraging failing fiat currencies.

Image Source: Markethive

The Optimistic Approach

A redeeming feature is that Circle’s domination will make the average person comfortable with cryptocurrency. With special thanks to Guy at CoinBureau for his insights and his take on the final objective, he postulates,

“If I had my tinfoil hat on, I’d tell you that was the end game all along. Partner with all international organizations and the financial system, convince them to adopt stablecoins, sneak BTC in through the back door with an IMF SDR stablecoin and turn BTC into the world's next Reserve currency.” 

That is an outcome we would all love to see because the alternative will see us perpetually enslaved by these technocrats. We must also remember that decentralized cryptocurrency is vastly different from a centralized digital currency and extremely difficult for so-called authorities to over-regulate. I doubt they even know what they’re dealing with to the full extent. 

We have committed and robust communities that are creating ecosystems with crypto utility, built on supply and demand with a free market principle, and will always have a place in society, even if it’s in a Parallel Economy. This is where entrepreneurs rise, reclaim their sovereignty and freedom, and thwart the misaligned, agenda-driven elite. I’ll follow up with an article where we’ll discover what the individuals in power are planning about a new kind of social credit score. It’s wise to be aware. 

Tim Moseley