Good question. The shadow definitely didn’t start with the recent hostilities.

Even in quieter periods, a baseline level of uncertainty has been there for years. It shows up in pretty normal decisions: people avoid long commitments, prefer liquidity, and try to keep at least part of their savings in something they can move or sell quickly.

I try not to frame it as day‑to‑day “threat headlines” driving behavior as much as the long-run expectation of shocks—sanctions, sudden FX moves, policy changes, or regional escalations. When you’ve lived through a few of those cycles, you start planning defensively by default.

That same instinct is part of why some people are now curious about bitcoin/crypto: not as ideology, but as another option for portability and value protection when the future feels fragile.