Last week, the world celebrated the 16th anniversary of the Bitcoin whitepaper.
While Bitcoin didn’t launch until several months after the publication of that white paper, its creation marked a seminal moment in monetary thinking.
Yet, 16 years after sharing the conceptual model and 15 years after minting the first coins, people still don’t know what Bitcoin does, why it matters, or what they should do with it.
To be fair, Bitcoin hasn’t done much except go up in price. Maybe 5% of people use it (probably less).
Don’t let that hide its importance. Bitcoin solves a big problem with money.
What’s the problem?
You need somebody to vouch for it. You need somebody to assure you that your cash is real, authentic, and worth what you say it is. You need somebody to guarantee that you have the authority to use it.
Some authority needs to make sure your money is worth something. Otherwise, it’s meaningless.
Ideally, this authority would be competent, honest, fair, trustworthy, and free. Usually, this authority charges fees, makes mistakes, defrauds you, lies to you, steals from you, colludes against you, takes your sensitive…
