The pace at which Bitcoin has been growing and catching up is clear evidence that Bitcoin is definitely here to stay reserving its place in the very near future. With less than four years of steady growth, starting with two academic research papers back in 1993 up to a Technology released in 2009 widely adopted and catching up before our eyes, Bitcoin has grown an audience of believers; those who see in this the perfect answer to the need for a currency not controlled by governments or banks on behalf of governments and a great substitute for state-created currencies having in mind their history and future fears of high inflation rates, or others who see in this a major means of exchange and payments for ecommerce.

Bitcoin the technology in a nutshell is a peer to peer decentralized system providing a digital equivalent to the current cash monetary system. The whole technology is based on three main things; mathematical calculations, digital signing or hashing and a level of pseudonymity masking out the actual real-world identity of the individuals or organizations in the Bitcoin network performing the transactions and exchanging the Bitcoin units, the bitcoins. The trust in Bitcoin’s deflational nature exists in its mathematical formula used in generating bitcoins, limiting the number of bitcoins released in the Bitcoin network to the total of 21 million units by the year 2140.

One of the reasons that give the Bitcoin a polished look is the ease of committing a transaction which correlates to the easiness of sending an email or writing a cheque. All what is needed to send money from a payer’s account (Bitcoin wallet) are an address of the payee (payee’s public address), content (amount to be paid in bitcoins) and a unique signature identifying the payer (Digital signature via payer’s private address). The transactions themselves are open to the public and saved in a special ledger called Blockchain which is decentralized to match the nature of Bitcoin, and publicly shared with all peers in the Bitcoin network. All transaction ever committed in the history of Bitcoin is out there for anyone to investigate.

The whole Bitcoin design leaves minimal role for governments in the scene, limiting their reach and access to the flow of money and their ability of seizing control and freezing accounts. Moreover, in terms of privacy, the pseudonymity nature of Bitcoin, is a huge dilemma for governments and political agencies, since it opens the door for uncontrolled transactions being committed freely and unaccountably, consequently showering the trading scene with fraudulent transactions or transactions committed between illegal institutions or for illegal substances. Concurringly, that gives the Bitcoin the evil side of the sword if left unsolved but also leaves room for worldwide researchers and scientists to pitch in with solutions taming this act of genius to fit it comfortably in our current world, economically and politically.

Now, the fact that Bitcoin has had this huge impact on today’s world gives both believers and disbelievers a run for their money. More believers and adopters will be joining the Bitcoin scene, including individuals merchants and investors alike, where disbelievers will still be fighting back with their ideologies sought to maintain the status quo either seeing in this a Ponzi scheme or an unrealistic field of subject resulting from techie people’s over enthusiasm.

Having both streams of believers and disbelievers is perfectly healthy at this early stage of a technology adoption, specially with such a technology as Bitcoin aiming at shifting paradigms either partially or totally. However, the need here in the Middle East is to break the image of late adoption of latest technologies and give room for their own wealth of scientists and researchers to contribute in this research and worldwide “forum” instead of falling behind and following others’ footsteps and reading about this in the news.