Western governments are quietly building their own capital control systems while criticizing China's restrictions on moving money abroad.
Europe is rolling out policies that make it harder to hold assets outside traditional finance: taxing unrealized investment gains, exit taxes for citizens who leave, automatic crypto reporting, and mounting friction for non-system assets.
The pattern points to financial repression. Governments drowning in debt need buyers for bonds. If holding $BTC, gold, or offshore investments becomes expensive and monitored while regulated products stay easy, capital flows where policymakers want it.
The playbook: trap savings inside the system, prop up demand for government debt, and let inflation quietly erode its real value. The irony? The West lectures Beijing on authoritarianism while adopting similar tactics under different branding.
Europe is rolling out policies that make it harder to hold assets outside traditional finance: taxing unrealized investment gains, exit taxes for citizens who leave, automatic crypto reporting, and mounting friction for non-system assets.
The pattern points to financial repression. Governments drowning in debt need buyers for bonds. If holding $BTC, gold, or offshore investments becomes expensive and monitored while regulated products stay easy, capital flows where policymakers want it.
The playbook: trap savings inside the system, prop up demand for government debt, and let inflation quietly erode its real value. The irony? The West lectures Beijing on authoritarianism while adopting similar tactics under different branding.