Tuur Demeester is the founder of Adamant Capital and has written about economics with a historical perspective for many years. I sin the public publication the Bitcoin Reform, he draws parallels between the Protestant Reformation where the Catholic Church lost much of its power and how Bitcoin can now be on the path to reform of the global financial system. Below is a summary of Demeester's arguments in Swedish and are interested in reading the details so you can find the full report in English here.

So first and foremost, what was the Reformation? Briefly, for hundreds of years, men with a culmination in the 16th century, various rebellions against the Catholic Church, which led to a series of spin-offs. These twists often go by the common name Protestantism. What they objected to were the holders of the Catholic Church, who used their power in ways that were more reminiscent of princes and other "worldly" leaders than they thought were appropriate for spiritual leaders. The rulers used their position to favor family and friends, they were paid by people to give them a higher chance of forgiveness of sins etc.

CIRCUMSTANCES
Demeester claims that there were 4 different circumstances that enabled reform and that we can see similarities to these today. The circumstances are these:

A benefit-seeking monopolistic service provider
The "service provider" was thus the Catholic Church and the monopoly was about the Catholic Church sitting on the "keys to heaven". It was only by utilizing church services using sin forgiveness that you could be assured of eternal life and the church together literally paid for this service. The heading may seem unnecessary to academic men "benefit-seeking" or "rent-seeking" is an economic concept aimed at gaining access to person / interest without producing any of the value and it is relevant below as we get along.

The equivalent in today's society is the international monetary and financial system. Just like the Catholic Church, it has influence over the legal system that makes it possible to keep challengers away and you can argue that consumers overpay for services (eg through hidden "inflation tax", ie money is diluted so that the individual's purchasing power decreases) .

People can respond by choosing another “service provider” if they consider it to be function, which is what hangs during the Reformation.

Technological revolution: catalyst for change
During the 1600s came several important upgrades, a bland printing press that lowered book prices tremendously and made them available to much larger numbers of people and double-entry books that contributed to increased international trade. The printing press has a clear parallel in the digital revolution that is now going on where the internet has increased the dissemination of information enormously. Publicly available cryptography can serve as a defense against the authorities.

A new economic class: people with something to fight for
In the 16th and 16th centuries, increased trade, technological innovation and specialization led to a decline in agriculture's relative contribution to the overall economy, which in turn led to increased equipment for the new class of merchants at the expense of landowners and churches.

Demeester points out to today's society do not have as early classes of men that there is a group of people who have and clear skepticism about the traditional financial industry and who enthusiastically adopt new technology, namely "millennials" (in Sweden more known as "Generation Y"), ie those born between the early 80s and the midsummer of the 90s. By 2029, this group is expected to control the largest proportion of income available.

Credible defense and escape strategies
Challenging a dominant status quo is not particularly enticing unless you have the opportunity for defense and escape. Of course, during the 16th century this was mainly about physical defense. for how the Dutch defended themselves against the Spaniards through deliberate floods. The 21st century defense is digital and based on cryptography. Between 2014 and 2018, the proportion of sites used by HTTPS increased from 13% to 77%, so we see a clear trend in usage.