Bitcoin is the first and most popular cryptocurrency, it is the invention of digital scarcity i.e. digital property. It’s a new form of money and an independent global monetary network. It was invented by a person or persons under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, and is an enormous breakthrough in computer science and cryptographic systems.
In simple terms bitcoin is digital money.
But then again so are dollars, euros, and yen. We have PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, Kohls cash, Credit Card reward points…heck you can even send money over Facebook messenger!
So while digital money is technically correct! It doesn’t really tell us anything…
What about digital gold? I’m sure you’ve heard that term tossed around, and honestly I do like it a lot better.
If I was explaining bitcoin to a 5 year old I would say that bitcoin is just gold that’s on the internet. In the same way that email is just internet mail, bitcoins are gold coins on the internet.
I like this comparison because calling bitcoin digital gold tells you it’s one of a kind, rare, and desirable. However bitcoin is more than just digital gold, its an evolution of gold. Where gold is great at moving value across time, its not great at moving value across space.
Bitcoin is better than gold because it was specifically designed to fix all of its shortfalls. Including verifiability, portability, and divisibility.
But still this definition of “digital gold” is underwhelming. It is extremely simplified and doesn’t really explain why bitcoin is so revolutionary.
To steal another line from Andreas Antonopoulos:
Saying bitcoin is digital gold is like saying the internet is a fancy telephone
