Bitcoin.
A crypto-currency.
A decentralized application.
A bubble.
An investment.
A speculation.
The next big thing
after the Internet.
These are only some of the
epithets and descriptions
people like to give to bitcoin
one of the most interesting
human creations ever conceived.
The year I decided to take bitcoin
seriously was the year 2015
and it coincided with my
reading of the book "Sapiens"
by Israeli historian
Yuval Noah Harari.
In this magnificent work,
Harari explains how, throughout
the history of mankind,
humans created powerful stories in
order to give our lives purpose
and consequently ensure the
stability of our social edifice.
I saw the power of stories
everywhere around me.
In religions, in politics, in social
theory, in economics, in movies.
And that's when it dawned on me.
I came to realize that bitcoin is
nothing more than another story.
A story created by some
extremely intelligent people
and gained steam by being adopted
by more intelligent people.
When smart people come together and
unite around a powerful story,
you can't help but realize that
there is serious potential in it.
October 31, 2008.
In a cryptography mailing
list called metzdowd,
devoted to cryptographic technology
and its political impact,
a member with the
name Satoshi Nakamoto
published an email titled
Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper.
In this email Nakamoto introduced
the members of the list to Bitcoin:
A Peer-to-Peer
Electronic Cash System.
It was an exceptional piece of work
predicated on a very revolutionary idea
how to send online payments
directly from one party to another
without the burdens of going
through a financial institution.
In a nutshell,
what Bitcoin does is it creates a robust
decentralized network of exchange
that is based on a technology
called the blockchain.
One can realize the depth
of Nakamoto's intellect
by reading how elaborate the
structure of his/her/their work is.
This paper is not something a
normal person could come up with.
It is a very complex
algorithmic process
that requires a great
deal of knowledge
in computer science,
mathematics, and cryptography.
After his initial email in the
cryptographic community newsletter,
he released the Version
0.1 of bitcoin software
on Sourceforge on the
9th of January 2009.
According to Wikipedia,
“Nakamoto created a website with
the domain name bitcoin.org
and continued to collaborate
with other developers
on the bitcoin software
until mid-2010.
Around this time,
he handed over control of the source
code repository and network alert key
to Gavin Andresen (lead developer
in the Bitcoin project),
transferred several
related domains
to various prominent members
of the bitcoin community,
and stopped his involvement
in the project."
His final email to the bitcoin
community is dated April 2011.
In it, he told to Mike Hern,
one of the developers of the
bitcoin code at the time,
“I’ve moved on to other things. It’s in
good hands with Gavin and everyone.”
Satoshi Nakamoto is now
a legendary figure.
The public bitcoin transaction log
shows that Nakamoto's known addresses
contain roughly one
million bitcoins
(they were all part of
the first blocks mined).
As of April 16, 2018, this is
worth over 8 billion USD.
This makes him one of
richest persons on earth.
Since Nakamoto rejected the
role of the new messiah,
the bitcoin game became open to
anyone willing to influence it.
The first popular bitcoin transaction
was documented in May 2010,
when Laszlo Hanyecz,
a programmer from Florida sent 10,000
Bitcoins to a volunteer in England
who spent about 25$ to order
him a pizza from Papa John's.
Afterwards, the cryptocurrency started
being covered by different media outlets,
thus gaining steam.
A huge number of tech-savvy
investors saw enormous potential
not only in bitcoin itself but
also in its underlying technology,
the blockchain, which can be used
in a wide array of applications
ranging from banking to file sharing
and even government-related processes.
Apart from the first
bitcoin exchanges
that allow people to buy
and exchange bitcoin,
many people start to accept this
new currency as a form of payment
and, not surprisingly, the most passionate
early adopters are drug dealers.
Silk road, an illicit
drugs marketplace
which used bitcoin as an untraceable
way to buy and sell drugs online,
is established in January 2011,
paving the way to the
evolution of the dark web
and the creation of a whole
new online ecosystem.
Slowly but steadily Bitcoin
becomes more reputable
and, as a result, new cryptocurrencies
that want to compete with it emerge.
People believe that there is always
a better version of a new system
and want to be the first who will
invent this “better version.”
Etheruem, Litecoin,
Monero, Ripple, Dash
are some of the earliest alternative
cryptocoins to appear in the scene
and are still amongst the most
dominant players in the landscape.
2013 marks the most
important year for bitcoin
since it was the year when the bitcoin
price experiences its highest surge.
On November 29, 2013,
the price of a single coin hit
an all-time high of $1,242.
In 2014, Mt. Gox,
the most famous bitcoin exchange
at the time closed its website
and exchange service and filed for
bankruptcy protection from creditors.
That, along with the shut down of Silk
road in November of the same year,
marked the plummeting of the
bitcoin price to around $300.
From 2015 until the end of 2016,
Bitcoin slowly scaled up the charts
to reach a value close to $960
by December 2016.
The number of miners,
developers, and investors
associated with bitcoin during
that period grew exponentially.
And that brings us to 2017,
the most prosperous year
for bitcoin, to date.
I am not entirely sure
what happened in 2017,
but I guess that when you
create a story so alluring
and with so much future potential
that will allow early investors
to make money out of, literally, thin air,
at some point this story will explode.
Bitcoin entered the mainstream,
buying the currency became
very easy, many prominent
and respectable figures
started endorsing it
and, as a result,
one of the most
interesting creations
in the history of mankind
skyrocketed in value.
Regardless of whether you have
skin in the bitcoin game or not,
you need to understand something
very fundamental about this idea:
Bitcoin isn't something that emerged
out of the sick or crazy mind
of a random programmer.
Bitcoin was something that was
desperately needed by all of us.
The banks and the governments have
been controlling the monetary system
for a very long time
and this creates all sorts of
problems for the average person.
First and foremost, we are
dependent on two entities
that can decide about how money
is circulated within the society
without them being omniscient.
Namely, their decisions are not
predicated on a flawless system
that will ensure the stability
of the social edifice,
but rather on
economic assumptions
that are usually influenced by the
needs of certain individuals.
Individuals that are high up in the
dominance hierarchy of society
and will do whatever it takes to
maintain their power and wealth.
The evidence of how blemished the
current system is, is indisputable.
Our economic life isn't a straight
line that leads to sustainable growth
but rather a playful interplay
between moments of crisis
and moments of prosperity.
The funny part is that the
inexorable propagation
of this system can't
continue forever
and it will evidently
lead to anomalies.
From my understanding,
such an anomaly we
experience at the moment
with the dawn of Bitcoin and
other cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin suggests something very simple,
yet something very revolutionary:
It's the first time in history we
can start discussing alternatives
to the current Fiat standard.
Back in the 1800s people
used to rely on gold
to estimate the value of the
currencies in circulation.
Every dollar was connected
to a certain amount of gold
and that helped the value
of a dollar stay stable.
This system was quite efficient,
but not really that flawless.
During the great
depression in the 20s,
the gold standard
inhibited economic growth
because it prevented
the Federal Reserve
from expanding the money supply
to stimulate the economy,
fund insolvent banks and
fund government deficits
that could “prime the
pump” for an expansion.
Also gold, in and of itself, doesn't have
any tremendously significant usability.
Yes, it can be used in jewelry,
electronics, and some other industries,
but that alone isn't enough to
make it an important asset.
What triggered the idea of a gold standard
was that gold was a very expensive metal
with limited circulating supply.
Which is an argument tantamount
to the bitcoin argument.
When Satoshi Nakamoto
invented bitcoin,
he did so with the intention of
creating a specific amount of bitcoins
that could be mined.
Specifically, there are 21
million bitcoins to be mined
and, according to estimations, the
last bitcoin will be mined in 2140.
If we take the limited
circulation into account
and add on top of that the
incredible feasibility
and usability
prospects of bitcoin,
that include decentralization,
security, anonymity, and ease of use,
bitcoin becomes one of the
most important alternatives
to Fiat currencies the
world has ever seen.
On the surface, bitcoin
is a digital currency.
For when people get
interested in it,
they do so because they see
it as a form of investment
or as an alternative
payment method.
However, when one starts to dive deeper
into the idea of what Bitcoin represents,
one can see something
quite groundbreaking.
One can see the
future of humanity.
If you take a look at
our history as species,
you will realize that our progress
is predicated upon the progress
of our governing systems.
What we are constantly trying to achieve
is the optimization of our societies
in order to reach a state of universal
equality and dissipation of suffering.
We have tried monarchy,
oligarchy, democracy, communism,
and other forms of governance
and none of them have lived
up to our expectations.
Our ideal political
system is none of that.
Ideally, we would be happy
with a mode of anarchy
that favors the ability
of the individual
to offer value within society.
We don't need governments
to take care of us.
We know that we can
do that by ourselves,
but the mere structure of our social
patterns don't allow us to do so.
Especially when the monetary system
is structured in such a crazy way.
And here is where the idea
of bitcoin comes into play.
Bitcoin is a
decentralized system,
which means that it is
not governed by anyone.
This seemingly small idea can
lead to a monumental shift
in the way we interact
with each other
and eventually re-engineer
our whole thinking motifs.
Most people will fight
bitcoin and that's a fact.
That fighting is not just a byproduct
of an astute lack of understanding
in the concepts I
just described,
but also because of a
resistance to change
and the inherent self-preservation
mechanism most humans fall a victim to.
What will determine
bitcoin’s robustness
is the community’s major players’
tenacity to keep on playing
and that involves miners,
programmers, investors,
evangelists and entrepreneurs
who are willing to risk
everything to make this work.
History is full of similar
revolutionary movements
and we all know that the change
such a revolution will bring
about isn’t monumental,
but it is definitely a change in a better
trajectory than the one we are heading.
The use of the word bubble
many bitcoin anti-sympathizers
are prone to is fallacious
since most bubbles in history
were carried out by scammers
who were willing to take
advantage of people's greed.
Bitcoin is far from what
these people promulgate.
Yes, some ICOs have a bubble
element entrenched to them
but one needs to be able to
discriminate between ICOs and bitcoin.
The game is a marathon
and not a sprint.
It is a game that involves
high stakes, risk, drama,
influence, persuasion,
money, politics, psychology,
philosophy, economics,
and history.
For some reason, it is a game
many people find tantalizing.
And, sometimes, that's all
it takes to play a game
and, eventually, redefine
our world forever.
Hi everyone, Andrian here, I think
that is my favorite video so far.
I guess being a bitcoin evangelist
myself played a major role in this.
You know, we live in an age
where almost everything changes at
an unprecedented pace and I truly
believe that every person should be
able to keep up with the changes
that occur in most
areas of our life.
Bitcoin has been one of the most
interesting human creations ever conceived
and it could be that through this creation
we could engineer monumental shifts
not only in the way we
transact with each other
but also in the way we view
our governing systems.
I hope that through my video
I managed to shed some light on the most
nebulous aspects of this incredible topic.
As always thanks for watching
and make sure to comment,
smash the like button
and share so that we can raise
more awareness around bitcoin.
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See you soon.
