When Governments Want to Direct Your Wealth, Bitcoin Offers an Exit

You have all probably heard the speech that Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission President, gave at the annual conference “La Rencontre des Entrepreneurs de France 2026,” held on August 26th. It’s been circulating on crypto Twitter like wildfire throughout the past few days. To those of you who might have missed it, her message was rather clear: the world has already changed, and Europe must respond by becoming more independent, more industrially capable, and more willing to direct capital toward strategic priorities. Von der Leyen argued that many of the assumptions that once underpinned the Union’s economic model have disappeared. Part of her point was that Europe must become a continent that “produces, invests and protects.” She said that the expanding access to China, open global trade, strategic American protection, cheap imported energy, as well as the West’s technological dominance can no longer be taken for granted. And as a European, I can get behind some of the things she’s saying. European companies are facing increasingly high energy costs, regulatory complexity, and growing competition from China. However, I can’t help but consider one particular point she’s m...