With the qualities of not being controlled by a central authority, limited supply, acceptance in every nation, and no verification required, Bitcoin is the future of money.
Today, governments print and control currencies. There are nations where the currency has eroded in value, and the government keeps printing larger denominations of currency to fix the issue.
The US dollar is the most popular currency today, followed by Euro, Japanese Yen, British Pound, and others. However, during recession, all governments print their currency in order to combat inflation, further reducing the value of their currency.
During 2008-2009, when the world faced recession, the US and other nations did the same. In order to provide value to common people, Satoshi Nakamoto, an individual or a group, published a Bitcoin whitepaper back in 2008 before launching Bitcoin, based on Blockchain technology in 2009. It was the world's first cryptocurrency with a limited supply of 21 million with no central authority to control it.
The value of Bitcoin remains the same across the world and it is accepted in peer-to-peer network systems.
The whitepaper successfully created a digital currency that operates in a fully-decentralized, trustless manner and allows users to send monetary value to each other through the Internet without the need for financial intermediaries.
What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a network that runs on a protocol known as the blockchain. Bitcoin is an open-source public platform that nobody owns or controls and everyone can be a part of. Through many of its unique properties, Bitcoin allows exciting uses that could not be covered by any previous payment system.
Bitcoin which currently holds over $1.12 trillion in market capitalization, more than the GDP of 100s countries is now accepted by a number of services and merchants all over the world.
You can process payments and invoices by yourself or you can use merchant services and deposit money in your local currency or Bitcoins. Most point of sales businesses use a tablet or a mobile phone to let customers pay with their mobile phones. It does not require merchants to change their habits. However, Bitcoin is different from what you know and use every day.
All of these qualities make Bitcoin a money of the future, one that will expand its penetration, as only 400 million people are aware of cryptocurrency out of the world's population of over 7.9 billion people.
Bitcoin, however, must be understood thoroughly before you use it, and it must be used securely so as to avoid common pitfalls.
Unique features about Bitcoin
Value: As Bitcoin has a limited supply, it has a value. It has a fixed supply of 21 million. No more Bitcoin will ever be issued. It is the scarcest money the world has ever seen, and the second most scarce property in the universe, second to time itself. Though Gold is scarce, one cannot be sure that we have mined all the gold from the plant.
Portable: Bitcoin is the most portable money ever invented. One can store as much Bitcoin in their wallet or USB drive or by memorizing a series of 24 words (called a seed phrase) which serve as the key to their coins.
Durable: Bitcoin exists on an immutable ledger which lives on the internet. External wallets can be used to store one’s Bitcoin. As long as one has access to their wallet or seed phase, their Bitcoin will remain in their possession forever.
Acceptable: Bitcoin is borderless and permissionless, meaning no central authority nor government can stop one from using it. Anyone in the world can partake in the network, making it the most acceptable money in history. One doesn’t even need to identify themselves.
Uniformity: All Bitcoin are the same and are 100% verifiable on the blockchain through code. Bitcoin solves the ‘double spend’ problem, which means independent validators on the network can verify what is a Bitcoin and what isn’t. Bitcoin cannot be counterfeit.
Divisible: Bitcoin solves one of the problems of gold (which is why silver was often used instead) in that it’s easily divisible. One bitcoin can be divided into 100,000,000 units, (called Satoshi’s, named after Bitcoin’s inventor, Satoshi Nakomoto). This limit can be broken down further if necessary, making bitcoin the most divisible money in history.
Fungible: A Bitcoin can be substituted for another because all Bitcoins are interchangeable with each other.
Even since cryptocurrency came into existence, the value has been increasing and now touched over $2.55 trillion, as compared to a few billions, a few years back. This has disrupted the global financial system, as cryptocurrencies are now being seen as an investment and also used to buy everything from software to real estate.
Bitcoin will surely be the future of money!
It is a Klever thinking to opt for a decentralized financial system in the 21 century.
Jagdish Kumar
Klever Writer