Written by: Lyn Alden
Compiled by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News
As I write this article in 2026, the world is increasingly moving towards multipolarity, a trend I expect to continue over the next decade until 2036.
In fact, this recent unipolar era is the rare historical anomaly. From the end of World War II in 1945, especially after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States has existed as the sole global superpower. Telecommunications and industry connected the entire world for the first time, enabling truly global influence.
Before this, multipolarity was the norm. Even at the height of the Roman Empire nearly two thousand years ago, there were other powerful regions in the world, including the Han Dynasty and other Asian kingdoms and empires. That was an era of distance and difficulty, where great powers could coexist but interaction was limited.
The multipolarity of power is also reflected in the multipolarity of currency. For millennia, gold, silver, and secondary commodities have been money. No single sovereign ledger was large enough to serve the entire world, so only a natural, decentralized ledger could suffice.
But in the era of telecommunications, as commerce and money began to move at the speed of light in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, even gold became insufficient. The US dollar became the primary currency for cross-border lending and contract pricing, and US Treasury bonds became the premier reserve asset for central banks. People often mention previous reserve currencies like the British pound or the Dutch guilder, but they were different from the dollar. They were proxies for metal, while gold itself was the true reserve currency of that era. However, in this unipolar superpower era, the freely floating dollar and its bond markets surpassed the known market capitalization of gold to become the largest asset held in sovereign reserves.
Many once believed this unipolar era was the "end of history," although history never ends. China and India gradually regained their economic strength from the lows of colonialism and war—the very events that shaped their destinies in the 19th and 20th centuries. Now, in the early 21st century, China has become the world's largest producer of steel, electricity, and manufactured goods. Meanwhile, the United States suffers deeply from the Triffin Dilemma: to maintain its status as the world's reserve currency, it must supply the world with its currency, achieved through persistent deficits. These deficits, and the resulting industrial hollowing out, ultimately erode trust in that currency.
Today, many among the US ruling class are no longer willing to bear the costs of issuing the reserve currency, though few admit it openly—the imbalances have become too severe. Simultaneously, the rest of the world does not want its assets to be arbitrarily devalued or frozen by Washington, nor does it want its debts to be hardened. No other sovereign entity is both willing and able to shoulder the burden of being the global ledger—it requires immense trust and comes with a heavy cost.
Therefore, we are witnessing a gradual return to currency multipolarity.
Gold is the obvious first choice: it is the only store of value with sufficient scale, liquidity, and divisibility. It is still not fast enough, but countries realize they do not have to go all-in on the dollar as they have in recent decades. They can hold more gold as a larger portion of their savings, substituting for treasury bonds. Gold has its flaws, but it cannot be hacked, unilaterally devalued or frozen, and it is eternal.
The second choice is mundane yet realistic: diversification. In a world with a handful of major economic powers, countries can diversify their fiat exposures. They can hold a basket of currencies and bonds proportionate to the scale of their trade partners and capital providers. This diversifies devaluation and confiscation risks. The problem is network effects: liquidity reinforces itself, and entities dislike having assets and liabilities denominated in different units, so currencies naturally tend towards singularity. A patchwork solution of gold plus two or three major fiat currencies serving as a global ledger is possible, but not ideal.
The third potential choice remains in a relatively early stage: Bitcoin. Nature provides a slow but decentralized ledger. Sovereignty provides a fast but centralized ledger. Bitcoin provides a ledger that is both decentralized and fast. The unipolar superpower world emerged in an era where transaction speed could reach light speed, but final settlement could not keep up. Fast global transactions (i.e., IOUs) could be done simply via Morse code over telegraph, which was simple and low bandwidth; fast global settlement (i.e., irreversible transfer) required higher bandwidth communication and strong cryptography. Now, fast settlement is achievable at scale, reducing reliance on centralized intermediaries to bridge the gap between fast transactions and slow settlement.
The challenges from here on out, however, are two: security and network effects.
Bitcoin's ultimate security has been questioned since its inception. Can its economic incentives keep it permissionless and decentralized forever, or will it gradually succumb to centralized capture? Will its cryptographic assumptions continue to hold? Related to both: despite decentralization, can it be upgraded progressively over time, remaining functional and secure as the underlying world computer infrastructure evolves? At only 17 years old, these questions remain unanswered. But those of us who invest in the asset and participate directly or by funding development believe Bitcoin is our best shot, and so we work to create the reality we hope to see.
Bitcoin's network effects are strong but still limited. These network effects, combined with its simple and robust design, have been enough to keep it the largest cryptocurrency for 17 consecutive years since inception, with no real competitor emerging. Yet, from a broader perspective, it's still a small fish in a big sea. Its direct user base is only in the millions, while the world has billions. Its market cap is in the low trillions, while global assets are around a hundred trillion. As for the dollar, the largest, most liquid currency is used as the unit of account—the dollar globally, and other fiat locally. It's the unit in which salaries are priced, commercial contracts are referenced, and liabilities are fulfilled.
To achieve immense growth, Bitcoin must necessarily be volatile to the upside. Upside volatility is accompanied by mania and leverage, which creates conditions for downside volatility. This adoption volatility will last for decades because it requires gradually eroding the existing network effects of the dollar and other large currencies. This limits Bitcoin's appeal as a unit of account and a vehicle for short-term savings. It exists as an investable asset, a long-term savings tool, and the most unstoppable means of payment and settlement for goods and services denominated in the more stable incumbent currencies. During this adoption phase, Bitcoin's fate rests on the vision of early adopters who plan in multi-decade timeframes. The larger it gets, the more stable it becomes, and the more it can serve as a unit of account and for short-term savings, but getting there is a long journey.
As long as Bitcoin remains robust against security threats and continues to erode the networks of incumbent currencies, it becomes more attractive to individuals, corporations, and sovereigns. By 2036, I believe gold will still be popular because people have a natural affinity for physical, eternal things. I also believe the biggest fiat currencies, troubles and all, will still be widely used: those trains have a long way to go yet. If successful, Bitcoin in 2036 will have a market capitalization larger than any single stock and rival the market sizes of the largest currencies and metals.
Bitcoin's biggest challenge is not governments, not quantum computers, not rogue developers, nor other digital assets. Rather, the biggest challenge, the biggest risk, is us. The people. All the people.
By 2036, war, corruption, and tyranny will still exist. But it's a matter of proportion and quantity. People imagine governments imposing these on us, but in reality, only partly so. In practice, it's people actively asking for them.
There's a perceived balance between freedom and security. War, tyranny, and the centralized ledgers that fuel them arise not just from human evil, but from human fear. When people fear invaders, plagues, technology, and competition for scarce resources, they turn to leaders for protection. As long as they perceive themselves under the umbrella of collective security, and the state's power is directed at others, not themselves, they give up some freedoms. This works for a while, but breeds corruption. Power begets power, and eventually turns inward. When state failures occur, they must be covered up. Critics of the state, whether external or internal, must be silenced. When freedom disappears, the system that promised security ironically becomes the greatest threat to it.
Those who criticize opponents for mass surveillance and bureaucratic overreach often embrace those very tools the moment their own political allies are in power. It's a short-sighted strategy, either relying on staying in power forever or lacking the foresight to know these tools will eventually come back, in more potent forms, in the hands of opponents, to be used against them again.
If by 2036 Bitcoin has not caught on, I think it will be because humanity did not want it, or was not ready for it. Its technology itself is robust; proof-of-work helps keep the network secure. Strict limits on bandwidth and storage help keep the network decentralized. Layers on top help provide scaling and privacy. More work needs to be done, but the foundation is strong, openly available, and already used at scale. When significant challenges arise, the network can upgrade, provided enough consensus is reached.
In this recent bull-bear cycle, Bitcoin further widened the gap with other cryptocurrencies but failed to attract many new users. AI services were adopted by the public much faster, surpassing Bitcoin in adoption because people and businesses could see the direct benefits of AI for them, while Bitcoin's benefits are not clear to many who haven't looked deeply.
There are many alternative stores of value, and volatility is painful. For Bitcoin to truly catch on, it must be because people value financial sovereignty. It must be because hundreds of millions—not the current few million—recognize the importance of self-custodied savings, permissionless payments, and financial privacy. These are precisely the properties Bitcoin uniquely provides at scale.
Before Bitcoin, in this century of fast transactions but lacking fast settlement, governments could control the financial system through back doors. By regulating banks, they could largely surveil and restrict activity, with almost no direct restrictions on any end user. Thus, most people didn't see a direct threat to their financial freedom. With Bitcoin, people can run open-source code, transact without permission, and self-custody liquid savings. If governments feel threatened, they can no longer just impose restrictions on thousands of banks; they must impose them on millions of end users and developers.
The question is, now that the technology has lifted the mask, will enough people resist and push through the friction to move forward, or will they comply and step back without protest?
We now have the tools, but will we use them? That is the main question to be answered by 2036.
