The self-proclaimed parallel government of Myanmar recognized Tether (USDT) as its official currency some time ago. The purpose of this step is to facilitate payments and fundraising by the aforementioned National Unity Government following its takeover by military government.
In a recent interview, Air Force veteran and National Defense Member Jason Lowery spoke to Natalie Brunell about Bitcoin and its use as a military system. Speaking amid the war for physical and digital assets, he stated:
“To maintain a permissionless control structure for physical assets, you need to have some kind of system control structure with some kind of consensus protocol.”
So he explains, “We have the ability to project the kinetic force to make sure we don’t have to ask their permission,” with reference to the plot. In the digital space he said:
“You need to be able to reach consensus on the legitimate secure chain of custody.”
That being said, Lowery compared the permissionless controlled structure of physical kinetic warfare to Bitcoin’s permissionless control structure over digital assets. He explained,
“So Bitcoin is literally the digital transformation of war from a kinetic energy projection protocol to an electrical energy projection protocol.”
However, he agrees that Bitcoin cannot magically solve wars and that the future will be a combination of several power projection games. Instead he said
“It definitely solves the wars over money.”
It is also worth noting that the US government is also supposed to maintain a reserve of bitcoins. Recent media reports suggest that US authorities have been tacitly auctioning their BTC holdings in recent years.
Jarod Koopman, director of cybercrime for the Internal Revenue Service, told CNBC how it was sold. He says,
“It could be 10 boats, 12 cars, and then one of the lots X is the number of bitcoins to be auctioned.”
The report finds that many agents participate in the seizure process by maintaining “adequate surveillance”. Koopman also stated,
“We only keep the private key in the headquarters so that it cannot be manipulated.”