I read your other post, @btcmillennial, and will go comment there after this. I think it is too soon to tell what the eventual outcome will be. But regardless of any possible winners, I feel the us will be the loser. They alienate the world and are weak as can be in many metrics. Many countries are doing their best to abandon the dollar as as a peg, and of course, crypto is coming up in power (too slowly for me!)
I am in the position of living in SE Asia for the last 3+ years while living in the US for most of my life before that. Some of the first things that became apparent were that most of the SE Asian nations are:
- far ahead of the US in technology adoption
- strongly influenced and accepting of Chinese influence
- very unaware of anything to do with the us.
I see almost no products from the us on shelves, and see almost no news of it. Many people have never heard of California. When I say, "You know, Hollywood" - no they have never heard of that either. But they do know all about China, get tourists from there, eat food imported from there, go on vacation there, and generally are approving. This is while they are also on their Chinese brand phone with 50 different ways to pay for things in various currencies.
This happened last week:
I am in Malaysia and met a a Malaysian lady who lives permanently in China and was visiting. She did not bring enough cash with her and her cards were not working. She was trying to find a way to get her BTC. I was asked to help because I am on STEEM and my friend thought I might know a way to help her. She was frantic at the time.
I was surprised this 70 year old woman had BTC at all. She said:
Of course I have BTC! Everyone in China has BTC. A lot of my funds are in there and I get more each month. No one uses cash in China. I cannot believe they still use it here in Malaysia. People want cash in restaurants! I just swipe my phone.
Now I wish I would have asked her where she get more BTC from each month. Is the govt handing it out? Maybe. If their goal is to be a powerhouse in it - widespread adoption would do the trick - leaving the west out in the cold and not even seeing it coming.
Thank you for talking about and asking about this. I am going to pay more attention now :)