The Mathematical Certainty of Bitcoin
There is beautiful re-assurance in code
Recently, I was asked a question at a book signing I was doing by someone many would consider to be the unlikeliest of people exploring Bitcoin.
She was an elderly lady, probably in her 80’s, and she was clearly interested in the concept. However, she struggling with some parts of it in the same way many of us do when we first embark on our journey of cryptocurrency exploration.
She’d got that it was digital money based on computers, she could see the possibilities it held, but she was still struggling with the lack of apparent support that this self managing system naturally comes with, i.e. none.
“How can I be certain that sending money from my wallet to another person’s wallet will get there?” she asked.
It’s a fair question and one I hadn’t been asked before, not in its direct form anyway, which, when I thought abut it later, surprised me a little.
The room of around twenty people immediately looked to me for an answer. I hesitated for a second. I could think of a number of ways of answering it, but was immediately rejecting each of them in my mind because they were too technical. After all, explaining Bitcoin is a bit like peeling a potato, you need to keep it in small, thin slices…
