China: from silk to bitcoin.

Of the existing civilizations, territorially or culturally, for over 2000 years there are, the Greek, the Roman, the Persian, the Indian, the Slavic, the Celtic, the sub-Saharan and the Chinese. Culture, in fact, is what defines how existent civilization is. The influence on other peoples, whether through language, arts, history or technology, defines the strength of a civilization.In general, as a culture, we have - although there is more scope - Western culture: marked by Greek and Roman Hellenism and Eastern culture, marked by technologies and philosophies oriented to the natural. In between these two is the Arabic culture, based on commerce and mathematics.I don't value judgment, or even say who wins or loses, or who was better or worse. In the contemporary world, the sum of these cultures defines how humanity sees the environment in which it lives, how groups of people from a given country behave in relation to another, how it sees the different and how commerce is streamlined.Political precepts also follow this influence. In this case, more equitably, where there is a senate and representatives of the people, based on laws and suffrages, there is clearly the Roman influence, especially if one of the state apparatuses is the regular army.However, as no army, nowadays, survives without firepower, without gunpowder, it can be said, in a simplistic way, that none of this would remain - not like this reality - were it not for Chinese gunpowder.Order, respect for norms and laws has always been supported by the consented use of force by the state, the famous monopoly of force by the elite of the nation.But, there would be neither society nor security forces, if there were no trade as the basis and flow, to move food, products, technologies and intangible values ??from one side of the globe to another.Commerce, therefore, is the equalizing agent between peoples, it makes empires rise and fall: armies cost money, keeping the laws costs money, great works cost money, and keeping the people happy costs money. Only trade equalizes these issues.The name, financially speaking, which sums up the trade relationship between two countries, is trade balance - the difference between what is exported and what is imported from the point of view of a given country.This trade balance is what explains many reasons for wars, disaffections, affections and friendships. It is what makes one bargaining power over another.The other end of this balance is the size of the commercially active - not productively active - population that can consume goods and services. The famous market demand.Logically, the larger the population, the greater the commercial capacity, the greater the potential wealth that can be invested in the consumption of products.On the other hand, this means, if the country does not have a developed and diversified industrial park, that country will be economically and technologically dependent on others to progress.That is the question, today, of quality jobs, quality industries and quality trade.So, all countries, having potential, try to balance the inflow of products with the outflow of products - or services - that can compensate for the consumption and outflow of capital.By desire, all countries want to export more (to accumulate capital) and import less (so as not to lose capital). But if everyone exports and no one matters, then there is stagnation. The plurality of trade means that no country can survive without importing something from another.This dance is what determines the price of large commodities, which is the basis for the valuation of binary currency pairs and which defines which industrialized a country is, to the point of meeting global demands.The relationship between demand and supply that defines the average price of everything and the shortage or surplus directly impacts inflation (devaluation of the currency in the face of a default) or deflation (overvaluation of the currency in the face of a default);Today, for the maintenance of countries and their government regimes, gunpowder alone does not solve the problem. Today, the commercial struggle, to guarantee employed people, health, education and internal security, becomes the amalgam that maintains the fabric of society.Whether the reader likes it or not, without these gears, unless we go back to the manors, no access to protein and carbohydrates would be had. This commercial-economic dependence became much heavier for society from 1800 onwards.In other words, the gunpowder that keeps societies protected today, called currency of exchange, can be the dollar, gold, oil. But, in recent years, cryptocurrencies have been on the front of this new digital frontier, in particular bitcoin and, on the physical front, the dispute for 5G, with Huawei - Chinese - as the telecommunications technology leader.Bitcoin is the dispute in this new universe, as gunpowder and compass started in 1500. Gunpowder, compass and clock changed the world at that time. Today bitcoin and blockchain do the same.And, as at that time, China revealed two of the three technological turning points in recent years - despite everything revolving around China's manufacturing capacity and its capacity to absorb global resources - China holds 33% of all digital flow of digital financial transactions, alongside the countries of former Eastern Europe, Asia and the Middle East.The Chinese influence on cryptocurrencies deserves attention by the pseudo-democracy, with democratic centralism, that governs the country.For bitcoin, a current dispute between nations, "made in china" will define how much it will appreciate or not.Just like in the 1980s the "made in Japan" - after leaving the concept of technological waste, to the technological edge, in the 1990s the "made in asian tigers", with Samsung and LG, like so many other good companies and from 2000, what was produced in China was synonymous with garbage. Twenty years later, the world is almost totally industrially dependent on Chinese products, cryptocurrencies will also go through the oriental process.The national cryptocurrency war, still in its embryonic stage, will be largely defined by commercial and industrial relations in the world. Although digital, cryptocurrencies have a foothold in reality and the potential ability to leverage processes to destroy progress.This market is not getting simpler or more linear. The eyes of the world begin to prepare a new battlefield: virtual but with consequences that can really kill people.If you, dear reader, find something in your house that uses electricity, for example, that does not have any Chinese components, please post it in the comments.It was necessary to observe the steps of China, always over 3000 years ago: Silk, gunpowder, compass, opium, kung-fu, telecommunications and the main cryptocurrency mines, make this country of fascinating culture and contradictory history an interfering factor in the world!? (Fu) For you!