By: Crypto Pilote
Today, let’s talk about Bitcoin.
In 1944, the Bretton Woods system made gold the foundation of U.S. power. In 2025, Bitcoin may become its modern counterpart, supporting the dollar while preserving American dominance.
Welcome to the Bitcoin-Wood era.
Let me explain.
Post-Covid Monetary Reality: Why the U.S. Needs a New Anchor
The post-Covid years were marked by unprecedented monetary expansion. Governments faced an impossible trade-off. Economies slowed because people could not produce, while states printed massive amounts of money to compensate wages and finance anti-Covid measures.
The result, a few years later, was predictable. Inflation surged. Debt exploded. Refinancing became increasingly difficult.
It is therefore no coincidence that, upon returning to power, Trump moved quickly and adopted highly controversial measures. The United States needs cash.
Over the past six years, the amount of U.S. dollars in circulation, measured by M2, has surged by nearly 50 percent. This expansion came alongside massive issuance of government bonds. The problem is that the average maturity of these bonds is only 5.9 years, which effectively means now.
The United States faces an urgent need to pay its creditors in order to preserve global confidence in what remains the world’s safest asset: the U.S. dollar.
Money as the Bridge Between Value and Trust
To understand the U.S. strategy, we must return to the fundamentals of money.
Money sits at the intersection of past and future.
On one side, money represents value derived from past energy expenditure. It is the accumulation of effort stored in a reserve asset. That value depends entirely on the desirability of the underlying asset, whether gold, oil, or something else.
On the other side, money is a promise of future utility embodied in a banknote. It is easy to use, but valuable only because it can be exchanged for something real if needed. Trust therefore depends entirely on the reputation of the issuer.
This dual nature is essential to understanding every monetary system that has existed.
I. The Gold Standard and Its Structural Fragility
From the late nineteenth century until 1933, the dollar was fully convertible into gold. Gold served as the reserve, while the dollar functioned as the unit of account. In this system, value and trust remained unified because conversion was always possible.
The flaw appears during crises.
When confidence collapses, people abandon trust and rush toward value. Dollars are exchanged for gold, triggering bank runs and panic spirals. This is exactly what happened during the Great Depression.
Faced with systemic collapse, President Roosevelt suspended dollar convertibility and confiscated domestic gold. The immediate goal was to restore stability, but the long-term consequence was far more significant.
The United States had placed its foot in the door of global monetary control.
II. Bretton Woods and the Rise of Dollar Hegemony
Between 1900 and 1945, Europe was destabilized by war, inflation, and political collapse. Wealth flowed to the United States, a country spared from destruction and uniquely positioned to rebuild the world.
Gold, however, was too slow for a rapidly accelerating global economy.
Holding nearly 70 percent of global gold reserves, the United States offered foreign central banks a deal: instead of moving gold, they would hold dollars backed by U.S. gold reserves.
The dollar became the global proxy for gold.
This arrangement ensured constant demand for dollars and gave the United States control over global liquidity. The rest of the world depended on U.S. trust and U.S. reserves.
By the 1960s, cracks began to appear. U.S. spending increased, foreign governments demanded gold, and reserves no longer covered dollars in circulation. Yet the system persisted because abandoning it would have triggered a global recession.
To stabilize the system, the United States struck a deal with OPEC in 1971. Oil would be priced in dollars, and surplus revenues reinvested into U.S. Treasuries.
Gold was replaced by energy.
III. The Present Crisis of Confidence
Today, the printing press continues to run.
The U.S. debt ceiling has been raised to $41 trillion. Debt has exceeded GDP since 2013 and now stands at 124 percent. By 2026, interest payments alone are expected to reach $1 trillion annually.
This situation is not sustainable.
Confidence must be preserved without announcing a new standard, because doing so would trigger capital flight. The United States must reinvent its monetary strategy while maintaining dollar dominance.
IV. Failed Attempts at Rebalancing
A. Balancing the Flows
The first attempt was DOGE. Budget cuts, layoffs, and funding freezes were introduced under the banner of efficiency. In reality, the U.S. economy is already highly liberal, and meaningful cuts quickly hit politically untouchable areas.
Tariffs were the next tool. Trump aimed to force reindustrialization and reduce the trade deficit. Markets reacted negatively, and the reality of long industrial timelines clashed with immediate refinancing needs.
B. A Fragmenting Energy World
Geopolitical polarization has accelerated. BRICS nations are forming alternative trade circuits. Energy markets are shifting away from fossil fuels. Uranium supply is largely controlled by China.
Oil is increasingly sold in non-dollar currencies. While this does not end the petrodollar system, it weakens it.
C. The Dollar Still Rules Commodities
Despite these pressures, global commodity infrastructure remains dollar-based. Liquidity, derivatives, and hedging mechanisms are anchored in Western financial systems.
This is precisely why classifying Bitcoin as a commodity was strategically critical.
V. The Ideal Underlying Asset
The United States needs an asset that allows continued dollar issuance while strengthening confidence.
Gold is too slow and already diluted. Industry is constrained by inflation and competition. Oil is losing relevance as an energy anchor.
The ideal asset must be non-state, liquid, non-manipulable, auditable, and denominated in dollars.
Only one asset meets these criteria.
Bitcoin.
VI. Enter the Bitcoin-Wood Era
Bitcoin must become the shadow of the dollar, just as gold and oil once were.
If access to Bitcoin flows through the dollar, then the dollar remains strong even in times of crisis. Liquidity will concentrate where trust and infrastructure already exist.
The United States understands this. It is actively encouraging Bitcoin adoption within a U.S.-based framework through regulation, ETFs, and custody.
Flow and Stock: How the U.S. Anchors Bitcoin
Nearly the entire crypto market is dollar-denominated. Stablecoins, derivatives, and liquidity all reinforce demand for U.S. Treasuries.
On the stock side, the United States controls more than 3 million BTC through ETFs, miners, seized assets, and corporate holdings.
Proposed legislation could allow taxes to be paid in BTC without capital gains, enabling gradual accumulation without direct purchases.
At scale, this strategy could materially offset U.S. debt over time.
Conclusion: Bretton Woods 2.0 Without the Collapse
This strategy does not make Bitcoin a daily medium of exchange. It institutionalizes Bitcoin as a store of value that absorbs long-term volatility while fiat currencies handle short-term shocks.
This vision aligns not with Satoshi’s original use-case, but with the reality of global power dynamics.
Bitcoin becomes the reserve shadow of the dollar.
That is the Bitcoin-Wood era.
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