When I first heard about bitcoin in 2012 I thought to myself: ‘That’s not money. That’s not going to last. Nerd money is only going to be used by gamblers and gangsters. But as time went on and in 2016 bitcoin continued to rise, I decided it was perhaps time for a rethink. When I had done my research it shattered the illusion of bitcoin I previously had.
What makes bitcoin so fascinating is that it isn’t what it appears to be at first glance. Bitcoin is not money. Nor is it a company, a product or service you sign up for. It’s not a currency system either. Currency is just an application of it. Rather it is the concept of decentralization applied to the human communication of value: a platform built on trust.
This might sound difficult to get your head around. But then money probably wasn’t the easiest concept to grasp either when the accountants first came up with it thousands of years ago. In essence money is an illusion that we accept as normal and take it for granted because it’s so embedded in our civilization. Money is among our oldest technologies, predating writing and it has gone through several stages of evolution on its way to becoming today’s currency. From barter through feathers, beads and stones to precious metals, to paper, to plastic, to network money….
Throughout this revolution the concept of money may have become abstracted but as it has changed we have always adjusted to its evolving character. Money we understand is a language, a way of us as individuals to communicate value to each other.
So what is it that makes the concept of bitcoin hard to grasp? The difficulty we have is in making the conceptual shift in our terms of reference that the Internet has brought to the concept of ‘currency’. The Internet is not a system built and controlled by governments. Its evolution is not controlled and decided by institutions, nations and issuers of bonds and banknotes. And as its child, bitcoin reflects the communication system that it grew out of. Like the Internet itself, it is no longer under the control of institutions or nations or issuers.
What is it that makes the concept of Bitcoin hard to grasp? The difficulty we have is in making the conceptual shift in our terms of reference that the Internet has brought to the concept of ‘currency’.
As we approach the first completely global, completely borderless, completely decentralized and completely open form of money this inevitably requires us to start rethinking what money or currency really mean.
As Bitcoin or Bitcoins do not require permission – in the same way that I do not require permission to open an application on the internet – this has led to exponential growth and implementation of bitcoin.
In the grand scheme of things, we the people in this room represent the privileged elite. I can go onto a brokerage account and start trading on the American stock markets with dollars within a few hours. 1.5 billion people have this privilege. 6 billion people can operate mainly in one currency and have access to banking services. 4 billion people are underbanked, and 2.5 billion people are completely unbanked. Most children born today will most likely never own a bank account. They will move to crypto. They will have a bank app which doesn’t give them an account, but this bank app will make them a global banker, an international banker. And will most explain this kid what 3-5 business day transactions were. There will be no paper/ plastic money, in fact in Sweden only 1% of transactions are done via cash where phones and credit/debit cards are used to transact their currency
Most children born today will most likely never own a bank account. They will move to Crypto.
Do not listen to the people who think that bitcoin will remain the domain of pornographers, terrorists, drug dealers and gamblers. They said the same thing about the internet, didn’t they? Bitcoin will allow the 4 billion isolated people from money to take control of their money, separate from corrupt governments and institutions. Because they have a globally recognisable currency this will allow them to access food, healthcare, education and sanitation, because that is what we do.
Bitcoin will do for money, what it did for communication – bring money back to the people and away from the nationally controlled central banks. Money will simply be an asset between two people and will have no requirement to rely on security of National Banks. Completely decentralized. It's time we stopped thinking of Bitcoin as money for the internet. Bitcoin is the internet of money.