Why is Bitcoin a revolution ?
In this article, i will share all my knowledge and my vision of why Bitcion is a revolution to our world. I will discuss many points such as its history, its creator vision, and why it’s such a massive shift to our society.
At the end of the article, i want you to understand how big can Bitcoin become for us people, and why everyone should embrace it in our modern society.
Lets dive into this exciting topic !
History and birth of Bitcoin
Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency, without a central bank or single administrator, that can be sent from user to user on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network without the need for intermediaries.
If you are new to the crypto world, there might be terms you may not understand. Don’t worry, I will try to cover as much as I can specific terms later on in this article.
On the Bitcoin network, transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain. Bitcoin was invented by an unknown person or group of people under the name Satoshi Nakamoto and released as open-source software in 2009.
But why is Bitcoin so different from everything we know until now ? Let’s answer this question in different major paragraphs.
What makes Bitcoin so special
Here are the major points to understand when talking about Bitcoin.
Bitcoin was created by an unknown person : Satoshi Nakamoto
Why does it matter ? Because as far as we know, nobody created it for fame, nor the money. Because Bitcoin blockchain is a public register, anybody that looks at it can look at any previous transactions. It is public knowledge that the first ever bloc created contains the first ever created wallet :
Satoshi Nakamoto’s wallet contains more than 1 million Bitcoin. And what is important about it, is that no one ever touched it.
The person behind the Satoshi pseudonym never claimed any fame, nor any wealth. His ideas of Bitcoin and this financial revolution is above all of that.
Bitcoin is decentralized
What does that mean ? Decentralized : There is no mother structure that runs it. To make it easier to understand, take the example of a bank. When you decide to send money to someone from your bank account, there is one physical person doing the transaction, from a centralized structure : the bank.
In other words, the banks decide and could potentially decline your transfer. Because they manage your bank account, they can legally refuse to send money to another bank account.
The same principle can occur while deciding to get some cash on a banknote distributor. The bank could refuse to give you your money. Money earned from hard work. As an example, let’s talk about the Lebanese crisis in October 2022.
Source : Aljazeera/news.com
Because the country entered an economical crisis, banks were lacking liquidities, they started blocking people’s withdrawal. At this point, you can’t access your own money.
In this article, we can read that a young woman robbed the bank with a fake gun in order to get her own money. She had no choice as her sister needed medical surgery and money to pay for it.
This situation is precisely what Bitcoin aims to avoid. Because Bitcoin is decentralized, no one can either decide to stop, or control the protocol. It is autonomous. The peer to peer protocol (peer to peer means person to person, with no intermediary) lets you send money to anyone, anytime. If you have money in a private wallet, you can do whatever you want with it, whenever you want.
Obviously, this comes with a greater responsibility. Because no one but you can access it, you must be very careful on how you use and keep it.
Bitcoin is censorship resistant
What does that mean ? Because of the decentralization, Bitcoin is not related to any state in the world. The Bitcoin miners maintain the network. There are miners all over the world, in almost every country.
No one, not even the biggest countries on this planet can control it.
To illustrate this, let’s take the example of China in 2021, and their decision to forbid mining activities in the country. What were the consequences ? Miners moved their activities to other countries. They went mainly to Canada, and the USA. These countries welcomed them warmly, because they know Bitcoin is a powerful source of economic development. Mining creates jobs, which creates value, which generates income in taxes for the country.
To put it simply, there will always be someone on this planet that will welcome Bitcoin. When we look at the geopolitical situation in 2023, the instability of the world could be seen as proof that Bitcoin will always have somewhere to go. What some countries decide as a restriction, it could be beneficial for others.
Censorship resistant to fight dictatorship
What happens when your government decides to implement measures that are opposites to democracy ? If the government and the banks of a corrupted country control everything you do, you have no escape. Once again, Bitcoin could be a way for unstable countries to rely on something bigger and safer than this dictatorship.
Let’s take the example of what happened in Afghanistan in 2021. The Taliban have taken control of the government and are now implementing a very strict structure, with no democratic power whatsoever.
While taking control of the government, taliban also destroyed their own economy :
“ The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, known as the Swift system, which underpins international financial transactions, suspended all services in Afghanistan.
The liquidity crisis that followed meant that commercial banks couldn’t lend money, and retail customers couldn’t take their own money out of banks.
An already war-devastated economy with 80% of its GDP coming from foreign aid and donors, Afghanistan was left on the verge of collapse. “
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia
By owning Bitcoin, Afghan people can potentially have a resource to survive in these tough times. They can send/receive money in and out of Afghanistan, which is now not possible anymore from banks.
The Bitcoin token has limited supply
It is important to understand that Bitcoin is meant to function as a currency, but also a storage value. Its supply must be limited in order to ensure its value. The idea of limited supply is essential to Bitcoin because it helps to ensure that the value of each token remains stable over time.
The high volatility of the actual market has nothing to do with its inherent value. It is mainly because it’s a new market asset trying to fit among others older financial goods or services.
Furthermore, if there were an infinite supply of Bitcoin, then each individual token would be worth less and less as more and more tokens were created. By capping the supply at 21 million, Bitcoin seeks to maintain the value of each token. Comparing this to the dollar or euro, we could say that endlessly printing bills keep maintaining a high inflation. This is an endless circle : banks print money because it’s worth less, because they printed more money.
With Bitcoin value proposition, the key factor would be that over a long period of time, your Bitcoin stored would gain in value. Because more and more people want it, but its supply is constant, it creates a buying pressure, making its price rise.
The immutability of the Bitcoin network
What is an immutable network ? An immutable network is a network that is resistant to change. This resistance to change is due to the fact that the network is constantly being monitored and validated by all participating nodes around the globe.
If any node attempts to make a change to the network, all other nodes will immediately detect the change and reject it. This makes it impossible for anyone to tamper with the data on the network, which ensures the integrity of the data.
Bitcoin is often referred to as an immutable network because it is very difficult to change the Bitcoin protocol. Once a transaction is recorded on the Bitcoin blockchain, it is very difficult to change or remove it.
It could only be theoretically possible if someone could control 51 % of the total mining hashrate. With that power, they could theoretically control the write of transactions, and possibly double spend their Bitcoin. Because Bitcoin is only digital, they could replicate the token and spend it in multiple places at once.
Fortunately, because the Bitcoin network is so big now thanks to all miners all around the globe, it would be so expensive for someone to control 51 % of the mining power, that it is simply not worth the cost.
When protecting digital assets, the main objective is not to provide a flawless security system. The objective is to make hackers / pirates not worth the effort they are putting into. Consequently, it’s way more worth it to keep the network safe (miners job), than trying to break it.
Bitcoin : A matter of trust
If anyone could at some point succeed in hacking the network, this would have permanent damage on Bitcoin. It would probably destroy it. Bitcoin’s value is based on trust. In other words, if someone somehow manages to break through its security, he could potentially steal something that would lose all trust, and therefore lose all value. Is it worth it for someone to even try stealing something that could potentially lose any value the second it’s been stolen ?
Bitcoin is a value reserve
When owning Bitcoin on a wallet, you can store value like never before. You probably heard stories about your grandma hiding bank notes under the mattress. This was an old way to store value, away from intermediaries, and accessible rapidly. This was the old way to store value without an intermediary.
However, the problem is that banknotes could be stolen, burned, or simply lost. Furthermore, it’s not easy to transfer money from one person to another, depending on the amount you want to give, and how far is the person you want to give to.
With Bitcoin, you solve all of these problems in once. The only thing you must keep is a list of 24 words, representing your private keys.
If you buy a cold wallet like a ledger, you can store your Bitcoins on it, and this list of 24 words is the only access to it. Don’t lose it !
Bitcoin can outperform gold
Many consider Bitcoin as modern Gold. I would personally say that it could be more than that. It still needs time and improvement, but Bitcoin has all the properties to become much more than gold.
Through history and time, humans tried to find a way to store, and exchange value. They used all kinds of methods of bartending, and anything that was valuable to us, could be exchanged.
Gold is the leading resource as a value reserve. It’s been the case for thousands of years, and it will continue to do so. However, there are some downfalls that Bitcoin could surpass.
Let’s say you don’t want any intermediaries in order to keep your money safe. If you buy gold ingots, you would have to store it somewhere at home.
Here are the inconvenients :
- If you get robbed, they could steal it from you
- You cannot divide it, let’s say for example to give it to your children
- If you want to sell it, you will expose yourself to many risks :
- Where are you gonna sell it
- Who do you sell it to
- How do go to the selling point
With Bitcoin, you only have to keep 24 words to keep your money safe. Obviously, this comes with a great responsibility. Losing your 24 words means that you lose access to all of your funds. If you don’t want to be that person, maybe using an intermediary such as a Bank to protect your money can be the solution.
In the end, it’s up to each person to make the best choice that fits their needs. Keeping Gold or Bitcoin at home, or giving all your money to your Bank, is up to you.
Bitcoin not as a supreme leader, but as an alternative of banks
The revolution of Bitcoin is not to try to convince everyone on this planet to buy and keep Bitcoin at home. The revolution behind this project is to give people an alternative.
By existing, Bitcoin forces banks to be more competitive, more customer oriented. They will have to prove that you can trust them, and that their services are worth lending them your money. Before Bitcoin, it was not an option.
From now on, we have the possibility to choose how to store value, and how to send it through the world. We are no longer dependent on their services only.
This is a massive shift to our financial system, and banks cannot do anything to it, but adapt. And this is a revolution.Our world has been ruled by banks and governments for ages. Bitcoin is a new era that gives hopes for people to take power back. Let’s take back our autonomy and independence.
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