You'll own Nothing. And you'll be happy.

We have all heard this or variations of it. The origin is a video released by the WEF in 2016 entitled “8 Predictions for the World in 2030”. The video has been scrubbed from the WEF website but can still be seen on their FB page here. The prediction was written by Danish politician Ida Auken and purportedly according to various “fact checkers” it isn’t a stated WEF agenda and was not a “utopia or dream of the future” but “a scenario showing where we could be heading - for better and for worse.” Well despite the WEF scrubbing these links we can still view the WEF post and the original article by Ida Auken via the Wayback machine:

• 8 predictions for the world in 2030 | World Economic Forum (archive.org)

• Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better | World Economic Forum (archive.org)

So is this part of the WEF agenda or not?

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According to the Reuters Fact Checkers - NO it’s not as proven by the UN SDG adopted resolution: Transforming our world: 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development where in section 1.4 under Goal 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere it is stated:

1.4 By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology and financial services, including microfinance.

Does this mean we will all be equally poor? hmmmm……

Ok so we can all take off our tin foil hats now and not worry about this anymore as it has been debunked. Right?

Maybe not. There is what we say and there is what we do or as I tell my children, there is what is true and what is real. What is real about property rights and ownership is not the same as what is true. Case in point it is TRUE that when you buy a house you are listed as the OWNER what is real is that the BANK owns the deed until you pay it off and then the STATE owns the right to tax you for the property and seize the property if you don’t pay the tax.

So, do you own it? Not really.

Ok, you say well that’s a one-off example - property rights are sacrosanct across the world, right? Not so much actually. In fact, there has been a trend over the last 25 years or so that completely strips owners of their rights to all kinds of property or assets with actual ownership in law conveyed to the “secured creditors” of the assets. This trend coincides with another trend to “financialize” assets abstracting their ownership through shares, shares in companies and shares in assets like REIT’s and most importantly ETF’s.

Wait a minute you say! I own Apple stock and I own a part of Apple. Nope, you don’t. You own a “representation” which is held as a digital record by a centralized custodian (DTC in US). No one holds a paper certificate and certainly not you or your broker. To really understand how profound an abstraction of ownership this is, I would recommend watching “The Great Taking“ by David Webb who explains this in easy to understand but significant detail.

You can also download his book for free here with an introduction that lays it out pretty succinctly:

What is this book about? It is about the taking of collateral, all of it, the end game of this globally synchronous debt accumulation super cycle. This is being executed by long-planned, intelligent design, the audacity and scope of which is difficult for the mind to encompass. Included are all financial assets, all money on deposit at banks, all stocks and bonds, and hence, all underlying property of all public corporations, including all inventories, plant and equipment, land, mineral deposits, inventions and intellectual property. Privately owned personal and real property financed with any amount of debt will be similarly taken, as will the assets of privately owned businesses, which have been financed with debt. If even partially successful, this will be the greatest conquest and subjugation in world history.

So why am I talking about this as part of a blog focused on bitcoin? Well, this comes back to that trend of “financialization” which is actually laid out pretty well by Fred Kreuger in a video he posted to X where he argues that the BlackRock Bitcoin spot ETF is the beginning of the financialization of Bitcoin and what it means based on past events like the invention of REITS, physical GOLD shares and other asset or commodity-based ETF’s. In short, he predicts Bitcoin at 500K within 4 years and mass institutional adoption and I think he is right.

I also think that this algins with what David Webb is talking about and this is how even Bitcoin - the permissionless, trustless, borderless, scarce sound money will be STOLEN from its owners. You see when you own Bitcoin in an ETF you own shares or “representations” of that BTC. This is worse than custodial, this is an abstraction of custody. You don’t have keys because you don’t have any Bitcoin. The Bitcoin exists in a pool somewhere and is first and truly owned by the secured creditors of the ETF. Sure, you can buy, sell and trade those shares until you can’t - should there be a bank failure, economic collapse or bankruptcy, then you will be holding nothing. Will you be happy?

It doesn’t stop there though. Got custodial BTC with one of the great new Bitcoin first custody services? Guess what - they have the same issue. The BTC belongs first and foremost to the secured creditors. They go down and your Bitcoin goes to them to make them whole FIRST. Nothing left? Not their problem. This is how you will own nothing and be happy (or not).

I know it will challenge most of the world to believe what David Webb has exposed. I also know that Fred Kreuger is right - people will opt for custodial bitcoin, they will demand and vote with their purchasing power for 3rd party authorities and regulators to keep them safe from theft and more importantly, to keep them safe from themselves.

Being your own bank is hard. There is no one to blame if you screw up and lose your life savings. There is no one to blame if you send BTC to the wrong address or forget to put in an inheritance plan for your loved ones. Being responsible is hard - giving up your responsibility is easier. The question is what price will we ultimately pay for easy?

I choose hard. I choose self-custody. I choose to run my own node. I choose to run a Lighting Node. I choose pleb mining even if I have very little chance of getting anything in return. I choose to be responsible for my own financial future. I hope you will too. The more of us that do, the easier our choice will become.

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