Power resides where people think it resides.” That line from Game of Thrones is just how the world actually works.
On the obvious side of course power is not always about physical strength, money, or even authority on paper, if we dig alot deeper at the foundation once enough people agree that something has value or authority, it becomes real in practice. Take currency for instance A ₦1,000 note is just paper. There’s nothing inherently valuable about it, no gold embedded in it, no intrinsic utility. Yet people accept it in exchange for goods, services, and even their time. Why? Because there is a shared belief system and most importantly, trust that other people will also accept it, thats just it, a unified belief system to give something value.
Now push that idea further with cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is even more abstract. You can’t even touch it, you can’t physically hold it, and it isn’t backed by any central authority or commodity. Its value comes almost entirely from collective belief, people agree it has value, so it does. The moment that belief collapses, the value follows.
This is where it connects to Xaro in Qarth. Xaro, for those that watched game of thrones, and how convinced everyone he was the richest man in the city. His “wealth” wasn’t actually verified by anyone, it was assumed and because people believed it, they treated him as powerful, influential and almost untouchable. That belief gave him real world power, until of course the illusion cracked. Once it was revealed that his wealth was nonexistent, his power evaporated almost instantly. Not because anything physical changed, but because the belief changed. The same man, same body, same position yet suddenly powerless.
That’s the key connection, Money has value because we believe it does, Bitcoin has value because enough people agree it does. Xaro had power because people thought he did. In all three cases it could be agreed that reality is shaped by perception.
It also explains why systems that seem unshakable can collapse overnight. If people suddenly lose confidence in a currency, a leader, or an institution, the power disappears just like Xaro’s illusion. Think of economic crashes, bank runs, or political revolutions, these are moments when collective belief shifts and that is why power will always belong to the people, if they could actually open their eyes and see the power they wield.
So in a way, the world runs on shared imagination, it is not fake, but rather collectively agreed upon “truths" and the moment enough people stop believing….... then everything changes.
