The process is the same for every government and country using fiat money.

1. Governments spend more then they receive in tax revenue and the gap grows every year. The government central bank prints money to fund this gap  – this ‘money printing’ makes everything in the economy more expensive. The bigger the gap gets, the more they print, the more expensive things get. Goods & services rise in price. Ordinary people feel poorer. Scarce assets such as housing, stocks and shares, collectibles rise extraordinarily. Wages don’t match these price rises and peoples savings are able to buy less than before. Everyone, except those with assets, gets poorer. Tax receipts fall and welfare payments rise, further straining government finances. This vicious circle compounds and leads to ever greater ‘money printing’. This sets off more price rises and round we go again. As this cycle spirals downwards, we increasingly see supply chain problems, product shortages and increasing politicisation of everyday life.
2. If governments and central banks didn’t print money to fill their income/expenditure gap, they would be choosing to refuse to pay the interest owed on their debt or refusing to payback the debt they owe. This is called defaulting and is like an individual or company going bankrupt. The UK would face an immediate severe economic crisis, a banking crisis and currency crisis. The UK would plunge into a deep recession with standards of living dropping dramatically. Unemployment, poverty, business failure, crime would skyrocket. The prices of homes, assets, the stock market would crash.

The scenarios outlined have been played out in many countries throughout history (estimated at 51 times in the last 200 years). It is currently playing out again in The UK. In fact, this situation is happening today within most countries simultaneously as they all find themselves stuck in the same financial problem against a backdrop of slowing economic growth and an increasing debt pile.

The problem develops, gradually then suddenly. Turkey & Lebanon are in the final stages today. The UK and other countries seem to be entering the final stages.

Well known historic periods of fiat debt default and inflation are Weimar Germany in 1920’s and Zimbabwe in late 2000’s. In 1913 Germany you could buy a box of eggs for 1 Mark. Ten years later the same box of eggs would cost 50,000 Marks. Then 1 year after that, they would cost 800 billion Marks. It sounds incredible, but sadly it is true. Ordinary Germans starved.

These devastating inflationary periods are a sad but common occurrence throughout history.

From a historical perspective this phenomenon often occurs in fiat money based systems (like the US Dollar, British Pound, Turkish Lira, Euro etc). When economic growth is not as high as politicians desire, policies to increase government spending are irresistible. The mechanism to pay for this is initially debt, but when it becomes more difficult for the government to pay for things with debt, the fiat money itself (£, $, Euro etc) is debased, with the authorities ‘printing’ money using various methods. This creation of money out of thin air then leads to catastrophic economic and often societal breakdown.

The most important step is to recognise that the rapidly rising government debt and associated ‘money printing’ is happening, that it has happened many times throughout history, that it impoverishes those without assets and potentially destroys economies & societies. Protect yourself from fiat money debasement by storing your wealth outside of easily printed fiat money.

By choosing to save in Bitcoin, rather than government fiat money, you are putting your wealth and energy into a money that cannot be debased, destroyed or tampered with.

In fiat money, everything gets more expensive over time.

In Bitcoin, everything gets cheaper over time.

Your box of 10 eggs may increase in price from £1 to £1000 over the next 10 years similarly as it did with the German Mark, but it will not increase in cost when priced in Bitcoin – priced in Bitcoin your eggs will fall in price.

As global adoption of Bitcoin continues on its path, those choosing to save in Bitcoin will not only protect their wealth, they will likely see huge appreciation in their wealth as the purchasing power of their Bitcoin rises.

Historically some protection has been achieved through holding scarce assets – things that cannot be ‘printed’ out of thin air. The best of these was gold which has served as money for thousands of years. Anyone holding gold through a government debt default or period of high inflation saw their purchasing power and wealth protected from ruin.

But gold has a number of drawbacks: it is heavy, hard to divide, costly to secure, difficult to verify and it is a product of the analog age. Today we have something with all the positive attributes of gold, but none of the drawbacks. Invented in 2009, Bitcoin was designed to fix and protect people against exactly the risks and problems of fiat money, government debt and inflation.  

Today more than 100 million people worldwide own Bitcoin for its ability to protect and preserve wealth. Often referred to as ‘digital gold’, this new monetary asset is growing at a rapid pace, with those buying Bitcoin now, not only protecting and securing their wealth, but also seeing large increases in their wealth (historically c. 100% annualised) as global adoption provides huge demand for an absolutely scarce asset.