We’re headed towards an unprecedented recession. The root cause analysis shows that the fragility and volatility of our value systems is caused by the disconnected worlds of paper and real (or: physical) value. The opaque trading floors of complex derivatives ,invite nearly unlimited risk taking and frankly, rampant fraud to our economy. An invite that has been picked up with gusto. As no one can tell what will crash first: the stock exchange, fiat money, real estate or other bubbles: the real hedge is investments in owned, physical assets like our natural resources, factories, machines and people. And ultimately in our most personal ‘bearer assets’ – our health, families and autonomy.
Is technology the basis of a new utopia for free people? Or a tool of ultimate control that quietly limits our freedoms to whatever suits an ever more narrowly defined ‘common good’?
Global decentralised standards for digital personal- and product identity are needed for a world of 10 billion. Applications built on these standards will have to cater to local need for relevance, immediacy and personal freedom, as well as the central needs for coordination and efficiency. But we need to adopt these with both a sense of urgency and inevitability, as well as a sense of human proportionality and a firm dedication to personal freedom and layers of protection against tyrannical government. Or we stand to lose both to the ever present threat of the dictatorship of best intentions.
English · Nederlands Editor’s note, October 2026: written in September 2021, at the height of the debate on Covid passes and mandates. The WHO ended the global Covid-19 emergency in May 2023 (source), the EU Digital COVID Certificate expired that June (source), and in the Netherlands a …




