A Brief Look Into Bitcoin
Shortly after the global financial crash, on October 31st 2008, a mysterious whitepaper emerged from an unknown entity. A person or a group calling themselves Satoshi Nakamoto. In this mysterious whitepaper, a new peer to peer financial system was discussed. It was to use a digital cryptocurrency called Bitcoin. It was an Omen to people being sick of centralized power meddling with economic systems. Essentially, what is Bitcoin? Put simply, it’s a digital currency that can be used to buy and sell things, but it has some key differences than cash. First of all, there are no physical coins or no notes. Bitcoin exists only online. Secondly, bitcoin has a limited supply unlike its inferior ancestor Fiat. But this is not what makes Bitcoin superior. Bitcoin’s superiority comes from its immutability, being unforgeable, unhackable, and unseizable, it is the first truly censorship resistant global currency. This is the foundation of free and sound money. Free from borders, near instant, and more importantly takes out the need for banks as intermediaries to take big chunks on every transaction.
The technology invented to power this system was called Blockchain. And Nakamoto’s paper was its grand unveiling. Blockchain is a continuously updated record of who holds what. These records are split into link blocks and then secured using cryptography. The cryptography part just means that you can be sure about the records. This is dubbed as automated trust. Or trust that’s inherently built into the system. The list of records known as distributed ledger is decentralized and is available to everyone to see and verify. In addition, the Blockchain is tamper-evident and unhackable due to its distributed nature. Everyone knows when a block is being messed with because it is rejected by the rest of the system (nodes).
The beauty of Bitcoin is that it’s a global currency but is not forced upon any user/citizen. Whereas central bank controlled currencies are forced upon its citizens. So there is a clear distinction in that you do not HAVE to use Bitcoin but when it comes to your native currency, you don’t have a choice. What happens when you don’t have a choice? Centralization and control of money supply.
Bitcoin is taking the middle and giving it back to the people. The only argument here is not if Fiat has an underlying value (which it does not and I can prove it to anybody that wishes to know more) and Bitcoin doesn’t. The only argument here is if you want digits on computers that are centralized and controlled by institution that can take everything away from you for something as small as an opposing view to the establishment or digits on computers that are completely decentralized and in the hands of no single entity. Free from borders, free from control, free from oversight.
Bitcoin, is not just simply a system of accounting, it is the first digital artifact that provides forever history, which provides true digital immutability. There is no other system that provides digital immutability at that level. Our ancestors’ said, this is as good as written on stone. Our grandchildren will say, it is as good as written on the Blockchain. Because it is the new standard of immutability.
