Digital Empires, Wars and Crypto
Iran, Greenland and How the New Cold War Over Minerals Is Rewriting the Rules of Power
In the 21st century, the world’s most consequential battles are rarely fought in the open. Instead, they unfold in the shadows—across boardrooms, beneath the Arctic ice, and deep within the earth, where the rare minerals that power our digital lives lie hidden. The recent discoveries of vast minerals, such as antimony reserves, in Iran and rare earth elements, lithium, in Greenland have not only upended traditional geopolitics but also set the stage for a new era of economic and technological warfare—one where the lines between statecraft, industry, and the crypto world blur into a single, high-stakes contest for supremacy.
For much of the last century, oil was the lifeblood of global power. Today, it is rare earths, antimony, lithium, iridium, and cobalt that have become the new strategic prizes. These minerals are essential for everything from missile guidance systems, solar panels, and electric vehicles to the semiconductors that drive artificial intelligence and the relentless expansion of blockchain networks.
The United States is currently guided by the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, and it has redefined its foreign policy around the pursuit and protection of these resources. Project 2025 is not just a conservative wish list—it is a blueprint for American dominance in a world where whoever controls the mineral supply chains controls the future. It is no coincidence that the U.S. has ramped up its involvement in regions like Iran and Greenland at the very moment when these territories have revealed their mineral wealth.
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The June 2025 U.S. bombing campaign in Iran was sold to the public as a decisive blow against nuclear proliferation. Yet, beneath the surface, it was a calculated move in a broader contest for control over the region’s resources. While the administration touted “total obliteration” of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, classified intelligence and independent assessments tell a different story: Iran’s uranium stockpile survived, and the country’s ability to exploit its newfound antimony reserves remains largely intact.
Antimony is not just another mineral. It is a strategic asset, used in everything from hardened military alloys to the flame retardants that protect advanced electronics. Iran’s discovery of 7,000 metric tons—nearly 10% of the global supply—instantly elevated its geopolitical significance. For Washington, denying Tehran the ability to leverage this resource is as much about maintaining technological superiority as it is about nonproliferation.
The strikes, therefore, were as much a message to global rivals as to Iran itself: the U.S. will not hesitate to use force, misinformation, or proxy alliances (notably with Israel) to secure its interests in the new resource wars. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, with its explicit calls for joint U.S.-Israeli action and its rejection of diplomatic compromise, has provided the intellectual scaffolding for this aggressive posture.
While the Middle East remains a perennial flashpoint, the Arctic is fast becoming the next great theater of resource competition. Greenland, long overlooked as a frozen outpost, now finds itself at the center of a geopolitical tug-of-war. Its rare earth deposits—critical for everything from wind turbines (although I hear they give you cancer) to crypto mining hardware—have drawn the attention of the U.S., China, and the EU alike.
The Trump administration’s bid to purchase Greenland, once dismissed as a diplomatic oddity, now appears insanely prescient. Project 2025 frames Greenland’s mineral rights as a matter of national security, urging deeper U.S. engagement and even hinting at military guarantees to prevent Chinese or Russian encroachment. The Pentagon’s recent shift of command responsibility for Greenland from European to Northern Command is a clear signal that Washington sees the island not as a distant territory, but as a vital extension of its homeland defense and economic strategy.
At the heart of this global scramble lies the crypto revolution. Blockchain networks, decentralized finance, and digital assets are not just disrupting traditional banking—they are driving a voracious demand for computing power that is reshaping entire industries. Crypto mining, in particular, is a resource-intensive endeavor, requiring specialized hardware built from rare earths, antimony, and other critical minerals.
As crypto adoption accelerates, so does the pressure on global supply chains. The industry’s hunger for ASICs, GPUs, and advanced chips has exposed the fragility of mineral markets. Any disruption—be it from geopolitical conflict, trade wars, or environmental regulations—can send shock waves through the crypto ecosystem, raising costs and threatening the viability of mining operations.
This is why the U.S. administration’s mineral strategy is so closely linked to the fate of the crypto world…And the contents of its Project 2025 bible. By securing access to Greenland’s rare earths and denying Iran the ability to monetize its antimony reserves, Washington is not just pursuing economic advantage—it is seeking to maintain its edge in the digital arms race that will define the coming decades.
Ironically, blockchain technology itself is being deployed to address some of the very challenges it has helped create. Companies and governments are experimenting with blockchain-based traceability systems to track the provenance of minerals, ensuring that crypto hardware is built from ethically sourced materials. This creates a complex feedback loop: the more the crypto industry relies on rare minerals, the greater the incentive to use blockchain to police the supply chain.
Yet, these efforts are not without their own complications. The energy demands of blockchain validation add to the environmental burden of mineral extraction, while the rush to secure resources often comes at the expense of local communities and fragile ecosystems. The crypto world, for all its promise of decentralization and democratization, is thus deeply entangled in the very power structures it claims to disrupt.
The scramble for mineral supremacy is redrawing the map of global alliances. The U.S. push into Greenland has strained relations with Denmark and the EU, while its confrontational stance toward Iran risks drawing in China and Russia, both eager to expand their own resource footprints. Meanwhile, China’s near-monopoly on rare earth processing gives it enormous leverage over both Western tech firms and the crypto sector, raising the specter of supply chain blackmail in times of crisis.
This new resource nationalism is also fueling a wave of regulatory innovation. Nations are racing to update their laws, streamline permitting, and invest in domestic mining and processing capacity. The result is a world in flux, where the old certainties of free trade and open markets are giving way to a more fragmented, competitive, and unstable order.
As the dust settles on bombed-out centrifuges in Iran and newly opened mines in Greenland, one truth becomes inescapable: the future of power will be decided not just by armies or economies, but by mastery of the minerals that make the digital age possible. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 has provided the ideological roadmap, but it is the relentless advance of technology—and the insatiable demand for computing power—that is driving the new geopolitics.
The crypto revolution, for all its disruptive potential, is both a beneficiary and a casualty of this shift. Its promise of a decentralized, borderless financial system is underwritten by the very minerals now at the center of global conflict. The race for computing power is, in the end, a race for the future itself—a contest that will shape not only the fate of nations, but the very architecture of the digital world.
In this new era, the boundaries between technology, economics, and geopolitics are dissolving. The nations that master the art of resource strategy will not only shape the future of cryptocurrency and computing, but will also determine the contours of the 21st-century world order. As the world watches the unfolding drama in Iran, Greenland, and beyond, the lesson is clear: control over the building blocks of the digital age is the new currency of power, and the stakes have never been higher.
By Douglas J. Boggs, founder of "Smoke and Mirrors…and the Art of Critical Thinking" and author of “Quantum of Justice - The Fraud of Foreclosure and the Illegal Securitization of Notes by Wall Street”. Douglas has two new books coming out in early 2025 to include: “The Psychology of Money” and “Mental Toughness for the Crypto Investor / Entrepreneur” to help guide readers through the investing world of crypto.
