On the 31st of October 2008 Satoshi Nakamoto published a paper explaining Bitcoin, which at the time might have reached a thousand readers. Today with a market cap of over 69 billion and 800 crypto currency clones it’s pretty safe to say that it’s caught on, but are we yet to fully realize the value of the gift given to us by the faceless mastermind?
So far, Bitcoin might of been the investment of the century valued at around only 8 cents for one in 2010 and now weighing in at a mighty $4000 each. Alt coins have also made a their fare share of noise, seeing increases of up to 1000% over a few weeks in some cases.
Opportunity is in the air and we can feel it.
As many crypto currency traders will happily tell you, there’s money to be made... and in todays economy a seemingly easy second stream of income is a rare commodity. So naturally, everyone wants a piece of the action. Strategic trading is commendable and highly recommended... but let’s not forget there are bigger fish to fry!
“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.” ~ Malcolm X
Today, we rely on middlemen like banks and credit card companies to establish trust in our economy but the problems continue to grow. Being centralized means hackers are a continuous threat, billions of people are excluded from the global economy and the system is subject to corruption.
If that wasn’t bad enough the services are slow, it can take days or weeks for money to move through the banking system and to top it all off they want to charge a big cut, often up to 20% to send money to another country.
“There's a loss of faith in the banking system that for so long has been the backbone of prosperity and growth.” ~ Lucy Powell
Fortunately, the future of money is programmable. Removing humans and institutions from the loop, and in turn removing many of our problems.
Crypto currency is designed to work in a world without intermediaries and trust is native to the technology. Digital assets like money are not stored in one place but distributed across a global ledger. When a transaction is conducted it’s posted globally across millions of computers and finds it’s place within a block in the chain... you guessed it, on the Blockchain.
Every 10 minutes a block is created that has all the transactions from the previous 10 minutes. Bitcoin miners compete to validate the block and are rewarded in Bitcoin. That block is then linked to all the previous blocks in the chain and each one is time stamped. To hack a block you would have to hack that block and all the preceding blocks across millions of computers all using the highest level of encryption. It would be as difficult as it sounds.
Bitcoin’s unprecedented level of security, global accessibility and cost efficiency all point to notions of innovation. Not only could Bitcoin simplify international business and play a role in reducing poverty but also it simply gives us an option.
Satoshi gave us the ability to not only create our own wealth but the freedom to control it, offering the world a gift with limitless possibilities for our present and our future.
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