Even though I’ve spent years amassing tons of bitcoin knowledge, and pondered over the nature of this invention for hundreds of hours, I still find it valuable to read and digest how other people define bitcoin.

Below you’ll find some of my favorite and most popular definitions, which combined with my own writings, paint a holistic picture of this enigma.

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First up, according to Google:

Bitcoin is a protocol which implements a highly available, public, permanent, and decentralized ledger.

In order to add to the ledger, a user must prove they control an entry in the ledger.

Google

We’ve already established that a ledger is just a list of transactions, like a spreadsheet. And we’ve already discussed that decentralized just means it’s hosted on tens of thousands of computers who all are in agreement with what’s on the ledger. Google also mentions that the ledger is ‘public’ hinting at bitcoin’s transparency, open source, and permissionless nature. And permanent to establish it’s realistically impossible to change the ledger entries.

What might still be confusing is the term protocol – an internet protocol is just a standardization of rules that allow computers to communicate with each other. Think of it like a language, a standard way of communicating. The rules by which data is encoded, transmitted, and understood by other computers. In Bitcoin terms the protocol keeps track of transactions and bitcoins, governs how that ledger is updated, and enforces the limit of 21 million coins (among other things).

Adding to the ledger just means creating another transaction that will be recorded on the blockchain. The ‘proof’ that a user controls an entry in the ledger, just means that you are in control of the keys to unlock the bitcoin vault and move the money.

Said another way, when you send a bitcoin to someone, what you’re actually doing is updating the bitcoin spreadsheet, telling all the nodes in the world that the money is moved from Alice to Bob.

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According to the subreddit r/bitcoin:

Bitcoin is the currency of the Internet: a distributed, worldwide, decentralized digital money.

Unlike traditional currencies such as dollars, bitcoins are issued and managed without any central authority whatsoever: there is no government, company, or bank in charge of Bitcoin.

As such, it is more resistant to wild inflation and corrupt banks.

With Bitcoin, you can be your own bank.

r/bitcoin

This definition leans a bit more into the token/money side of bitcoin vs describing how the ledger works.

The difference between distributed and decentralized is just that distributed only means hosted on thousands of computers, whereas decentralized means no one is in charge. A distributed computer network can still be technically centralized if there are hierarchies. In bitcoin all nodes are equal.

The fact that bitcoins are issued and managed via computer software vs a central authority makes bitcoin apolitical and neutral. Similar to if we all transacted in gold nuggets that didn’t have a face of a king on them. The advantage of a non-state peer-to-peer money is of course the absence of inflation, counterparty risk, and fractional reserve bank runs, but also full monetary autonomy, increased digital privacy, censorship resistance,

Being your own bank with bitcoin just means running your own software to verify for yourself that the money is yours, and having full autonomy over your money without counterparty risks.

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While a bit complicated, in their Bitcoin 101 paper, NYDIG describes many bitcoin elements extremely succinctly:

Bitcoin is an open source monetary system – that is, a system for storing and transmitting an asset of value whose underlying code is fully open to the public.

This system allows bitcoin (lowercase “b”), the native digital asset of the Bitcoin network, to be sent securely between users over the internet without the need of an intermediary.

Transactions are verified and recorded in a public ledger called a blockchain through a process called mining.

NYDIG

Bitcoin is an open source system

All of bitcoin’s code is available to inspect and it’s in the public domain meaning you can freely copy and modify it. There’s no copyright protections, and you can use the code for commercial purposes. The code that bitcoin runs is visible to everyone, and so are the updates. And it’s voluntary meaning you don’t even have to accept any changes or updates if you don’t want to. Bitcoin is fully transparent for ethical reasons, but also so that it can replicate itself like a virus.

Bitcoin is a monetary system

You can send, hold, and receive bitcoin within the software stack. Just like PayPal or Venmo, or a bank account. In the same way that we have a global fiat monetary system, where money can be transferred around via payment processers and banks, bitcoin the currency can be transfered around via the bitcoin network

bitcoin lowercase b is a native digital asset

It’s a token. Bitcoin spelled with a lower case b is usually referring to the money itself, like the dollar, and bitcoin with an uppercase B is referring to the network, like Paypal. It would be fucking weird if your credit card, banking system and cash were were all just called the Dollar. But in bitcoin the network and token have the same name which can be confusing.

bitcoin is sent between people over the internet without an intermediary

Think of bitcoin on the Bitcoin network like handing someone a physical gold coin or a dollar bill. When you pay in person for something there’s no one in the middle of that transaction. All digital money before bitcoin had to go through some company or bank or government, someone you had to trust to pay you back. Someone who took fees, or took 7-10 business days, or who declined your transaction or froze your withdrawal. Someone who needs to get the money from someone else first, in a never ending chain of IOUs.

Bitcoin removes all of that garbage from banking. There’s no one in between you and the person you’re paying. The transmission is instead handled by autonomous computer code and a global competition.

Transactions are verified and recorded in a public ledger called a blockchain through a process called mining.

So mining bitcoin is a bit complicated and not something I’ll cover here. But the funny way to think about mining is that it’s like running your PlayStation 24 hours a day resulted in solved sudokus you could trade for heroine. But basically what you have to know is that it is the process that settles bitcoin transactions and keeps them record forever.

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The bitcoin network is a global decentralized consensus network which operates on a cryptographic p2p protocol – on top of the Internet – established by individuals [computers / nodes] all around the world who run the Bitcoin Core Software [free open-source software] program which enforce Consensus Rules through an process called Bitcoin Mining which relay and validate UTXO transactions and record state to an immutable append-only Distributed Ledger; Bitcoin Blockchain.

BitcoinNetwork.com

Ok this is another loaded one, but by far the most accurate and comprehensive bitcoin explanation I’ve ever found. In fact I recommend just straight up visiting bitcoinnetwork.com and reading as much as you can there.

I’ll do my best to break this out though:

Decentralized Consensus Network

A group of computers all talking to each other forming a network, the computers are all distributed around the world instead of in one place which makes them decentralized. And they reach consensus, aka agreement, on the order of transactions through math, physics and probabilities, instead of one master computer deciding on the truth.

Cryptographic

P2P Protocol

Bitcoin Core Software [free open-source]

Consensus rules

UTXO transactions

Immutable append only distributed ledger

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And last but certainly not least:

Bitcoin is a collection of concepts and technologies that form the basis of a digital money ecosystem.

Units of currency called bitcoin are used to store and transmit value among participants in the bitcoin network.

Bitcoin users communicate with each other using the bitcoin protocol primarily via the internet, although other transport networks can also be used.

The bitcoin protocol stack, available as open source software, can be run on a wide range of computing devices, including laptops and smartphones, making the technology easily accessible.

Mastering Bitcoin

WOW a collection of concepts and technologies how can you get any more confusing than that!

How do you describe something which is really a collection of many things? And not just a collection of many things…

…bitcoin is a collection of many ideas.

Neutrality, Transparency, Privacy, Security, Equality, Freedom, Autonomy, Trust, Cosmopolitanism, Justice, Peace, Human rights, etc.

Bitcoin is more than just a money, it’s a cryptographic digital money ecosystem and a belief system.

It is a true peer-to-peer money system, controlled by the people, for the people. 

Bitcoin is money for the poor, divisible so anyone can afford to save their wealth

Bitcoin is neutral and fair, it doesn’t pick winners and losers

Bitcoin is the first completely global, completely borderless, completely decentralized, completely open, form of money

Everyone is entitled to saving the fruits of their labor, bitcoin is a store of value asset that can’t be diluted

Bitcoin is the best savings technology ever invented, and will fix many of the ills in the world which stem from bad monetary policy and lack of institutional property rights 

Equal opportunity, no discrimination, accessible to all

“Anyone can create a Bitcoin account, without charge and without any centralized vetting procedure— or even a requirement to provide a real name.” – Journal of economic perspectives

• Who needs bitcoin?
  • “Ask a Venezuelan if they need bitcoin; the answer is yes. Someone from Argentina, Brazil, Ukraine, Greece, Cyprus…they need it. People who live under despotic governments and dictatorships, people who are fighting revolutions, people who are dealing with currency controls and corrupt banks, people who can’t trade internationally. People who do not have sufficient documentation to open a bank account, people trying to transmit money to their relatives across boarders in conflict areas…they need it. They need something that is free, open, borderless, and censorship-resistant. They need that for smart contracts, privacy and currency itself.” – Andreas The Internet of Money vol. 3

Ethics of money production: All these aspects lead to the conclusion that a free market in money production is ethically superior to its logical alternative: money production based on legal exemptions and privileges.”

On a Halloween night, 14 years ago

An anonymous and mysterious programmer, posted the solution to a computer science problem.

A problem once thought impossible to solve.

It was the invention of an all-powerful, uncontrollable, malware network.

October 31st 2008 will go down in history as the day Pandora’s box was opened

…when an irreversible curse was cast on humanity…

As it turns out, this digital invention was actually an unstoppable computer cancer

Set loose into cyberspace!

…and now…

…14 years later…

…it has spread to the point of no return.

What’s even more scary is –

This shadowy mastermind…this mad computer scientist…

Vanished.

Like a ghost.

And remains unknown to this very day.

No one even knows if he is dead or alive, and yet, this invention has made her worth of over $30 billion.

In fact, she is projected to be the richest human on earth in less than 5 years.

And their invention has changed the course of human civilization forever.

This is a Halloween story scarier than any other.

Because this story,

Is real.

The invention I was talking about ^

Well you probably know it best as “digital gold”

but isn’t gold at all…

In fact Bitcoin is actually orange

Like the color palate from the holiday in which it spawned…this Halloween nightmare has quite the interesting story ….

For you see, the unknown inventor of bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, was a Cypherpunk

The Cypherpunks were a group of rogue anti-authoritarian computer programmers.

Digital liberty advocates and anarchists,

More like a A bunch of nerds! (back in the 90s) who were terrified of a future Orwellian surveillance state.

They decided to take freedom into their own hands.

Creating technology that no government or corporation could stop!

Bitcoin is the result of decades of research and development by the cypherpunks.

It is a fundamental breakthrough in computer science, information theory, fintech, economics, and cryptographic systems.

And it obsoletes our man made monetary institutions, like banks, corporations, and governments.

This is trust in math, trust in code, not in humans.

Bitcoin is the number one cryptocurrency for a reason, it’s the largest and most secure supercomputer on earth.

Bitcoin is immortal. It can’t be shut down, it can’t be banned, it can’t be hacked, it can’t be changed, and it can’t be controlled.

Bitcoin runs on its own without anyone in charge.

It’s a money that’s out of control.

It’s a virus that hijacks human greed,

A contagion that make its hosts filthy rich

Using game theory to infect the world with money beyond our control.

You might be wondering, what’s the point, why was bitcoin created? what’s the end game?

The cypherpunks designed bitcoin to end humanity’s monopoly on money.

And the corruption that comes with it.

Bitcoin is the separation of money and state.

Everyone intuitively understands that it’s all about the money. Always has been.

Imagine the most powerful tool of civilization, pried from the clutches of the elite.

Infected, outwitted, and unseated.

Bitcoin is just getting started.

If you don’t remember anything else about bitcoin, just remember this: No one controls bitcoin, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.

On that fateful Halloween night, human civilization was changed forever.

Grab your popcorn, cus the next 20 years are going to be fucking wild!

Money is just the base layer of an economic system, just like BTC is the base layer of the bitcoin economy. The difference is bitcoin is also a network, a tech stack, and a protocol. Digital and programmable monetary infrastructure.

BTC is the native money of the internet, but bitcoin is much more than that. Bitcoin is the internet of money.

In order for you to understand what bitcoin is, you unfortunately have to understand what the internet is.

The Internet (or internet)^[a] is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP)^[b] to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks…

Wikipedia

The internet is programmable information. It is unrestricted, global, instantly transferable information. Bitcoin is programmable money – unrestricted, global, and instantly transferable money.

The internet is decentralized informational infrastructure, bitcoin is decentralized monetary infrastructure. The internet is an information protocol that can be built upon. Bitcoin is a money protocol that can be built upon.

Bitcoin is digital public infrastructure for money, much like the internet is digital public infrastructure for information…it is owned by no one, and accessible to everyone. It is a public good that acts as infrastructure for civilization to utilize if they so please. 

Jack Mallers

Bitcoin democratizes value in the same way that the internet democratizes information.

The internet has allowed the coordination of humanity on a scale never before seen in human history, allowing for knowledge and revolutionary ideas to spread like wildfire. Bitcoin allows for unrestricted financing, pairing global coordination with unrestricted payments, fundraising, contracts, monetary autonomy and value exchange.

There’s no one in charge of the internet, there’s no central governing body dictating policy. And unlike all other cryptocurrencies, there’s no one in charge of bitcoin. This makes bitcoin the only true neutral money transfer protocol and the most similar to the internet protocol.

Bitcoin is less like an app, like AOL or Myspace, and more like TCP/IP, or UDP or SMTP. It’s part of the internet infrastructure responsible for transferring value. With bitcoin the information is the money, making it fully integrable into the internet stack.

Of course a monetary system not only needs money. It needs transfer services, it needs storage, accounting systems, exchanges, options contracts, trading platforms, insurance, crowdfunding, payment infrastructure, liquidity services, interoperable financial infrastructure etc. Bitcoin is the money but it’s also the platform where all other monetary system functionalities can be built.

Bitcoin is the Internet of money. Currency is only the first application. And it’s core, Bitcoin is a revolutionary technology that will change the world forever

 Andreas Antonopoulos -The internet of Money vol. 1

Bitcoin’s design allows for apps to be built on it’s periphery completely without permission. It’s open source and anyone can build a program that uses bitcoin and adds functionality to the network.

Complex custody solutions and transaction types unlocked by outputs like pay to script hash increase the types of possible transactions and improve user privacy and security. Upgrades to the software like Segwit have allowed for greater base chain scaling and for layer 2 solutions like the Lightning network to be built on top of bitcoin. And more recently the Taproot upgrade has unlocked additional smart contract functionality and privacy improvements to the bitcoin stack allowing for all kinds of options contracts and insurance capabilities.

Bitcoin is the Foundation of a Global Monetary and Financial system

Those examples are just scratching the surface though, the bitcoin tech stack rabbit hole goes way further than this simple introduction. From the BTC Pay server, to statechains and sidechains, to RGB, ARK, Web5, Rootstock, Sovereign defi, Miniscript, Stratum V2, Federated Chaumian mints, Ordinals, L402, Stablesats, Taproot assets, Nostr marketplaces and many more. Of course this is not even counting other projects yet to be imagined or built with additional soft fork upgrades like CTV or Cross Input Signature Aggregation.

The industries that will integrate into the internet of money are truly boundless. Social media’s creator economies, AR and the VR Metaverses, eSports, and eCommerce will all be connected this global and frictionless monetary system.

What’s truly revolutionary though is that because bitcoin is open and permissionless monetary infrastructure, the internet of money isn’t limited to just humans. AI, robots, self driving cars, smart homes, drones, and the unimagined future of the internet of things can all leverage bitcoin’s programmability and use this public internet-based money infrastructure in a digital economy completely separate from our own.

Bitcoin is the internet of money, a network for propagating value and securing the ownership of digital assets via distributed computation.

Mastering Bitcoin

The internet is a network of informational networks, bitcoin is a network of monetary networks. Different layers and protocols are being built on top, using the base layer as a settlement network and arbiter of ownership for more advanced use cases. The bitcoin stack is much more than just a money protocol, money is just scratching the surface.

If this is all still not making perfect sense to you, this is the key insight that flipped the switch for me personally and made me realize what bitcoin actually is:

Bitcoin will not necessarily be the “money” used for every transaction. It’s aiming for something much greater. Bitcoin will become the foundational protocol that the future digital economy and all global monies will be built upon.

We’re talking a new global financial and monetary system, remade on top of bitcoin. Transferring ownership of real world assets like stocks and bonds and fiat currencies themselves.

The reason this is so revolutionary is because it’s a system that’s based on the money and network being decentralized, independent, and uncontrollable.

A revolutionary economic system, built with technology. Based on rules not rulers.

The separation of money and state.

Why is bitcoin the internet of money and not the larger crypto ecosystem?

The obvious reaction to this of course is, bitcoin is just one blockchain network among an entire crypto ecosystem, why BTC and not ETH, SOL, ADA, ALGO, TRX, MATIC, ATOM, AVAX…..

Isn’t bitcoin + (insert favorite Turing complete smart contract platform) + Layer 2 rollups + defi + metaverse + corporate FinTech platforms = the real internet of money?

While yes we will have a multi-coin world, and multiple smart contract platforms and decentralized nodes and relay infrastructure facilitating communications and payments, bitcoin is by far the strongest base layer internet of money. Bitcoin is unparalleled in it’s decentralization and immutable monetary policy, it’s a Turing incomplete blockchain which prioritizes simplicity, security, and durability.

And due to bitcoin’s strong monetary characteristics, even if other blockchains carry the weight of the IoM infrastructure in the future, bitcoin will always be the gold standard, the digital gold and the golden network that’s completely uncontrollable and immutable to mankind. Combining its neutrality, durability and programmability with an immutable bedrock foundation, bitcoin takes the slow and steady approach to outlast all other monetary infrastructure. Over time the bitcoin network will adopt the successful innovations in the larger crypto space to it’s superior network, leaving other platforms obsolete.

Looking into the Future

To achieve the title of the sole money and monetary system of the future, bitcoin has many challenges ahead of itself. The entrenched fiat capitalist system and competitor crypto networks probably wont go away anytime soon. It took hundreds of years for the separation of church and state, and to think a system as complex as the global economy will be quick to transition is naïve at best.

As a pragmatist I would concede that the likelihood of full market share of the global economy within my lifetime is slim and might not happen for a hundred years. Instead, what I believe is that there will most likely be a multi-chain world and parallel fiat economy for the foreseeable future.

The reason why this is good is because bitcoin will always exist as a voluntary life raft for others to join (Instead of rapidly destroying the global economy, with bitcoin endogenously reborn from fiat ashes).

The fact that an internet based, neutral, and unchangeable economic system exists as an alternative will put a check on the expansionist policies of the other systems. They can exist in harmony as the cost of capital is rediscovered on the open market and the overleveraged fiat system course corrects.

Instead of a seismic shift and quick destruction of the old system, the bitcoin onboarding process (should) and will take time. That’s honestly what’s so exciting. We’re building revolutionary systems that will last generations.

Refrences:

From <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN4klUUx8fM>

Bitcoin is one of a kind and has no competition. There are no competitors in it’s quest for digital gold.

Bitcoin is a one-of-a-kind cryptocurrency that has no competition in the digital currency space. Despite the emergence of other cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin remains the most popular and widely adopted digital currency in the world. This can be attributed to a number of factors, including Bitcoin’s network effect, superior monetary policy, and decentralized architecture, which make it an unbeatable force in the cryptocurrency market.

One of the biggest debates in the cryptocurrency space is between Eth killers and btc killers. Eth killers, such as Cardano and Solana, seek to replace Ethereum as the go-to platform for decentralized applications, while btc killers, such as Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash, aim to dethrone Bitcoin as the top cryptocurrency. However, despite the emergence of these projects, Bitcoin’s dominance remains unchallenged. This is because Bitcoin has been the number one cryptocurrency since its inception, and since the ICO failures of 2017, no one has been able to compete with its network effect.

Since the initial coin offering (ICO) failures of 2017, no cryptocurrency has emerged that can compete with Bitcoin’s network effect. The network effect is a phenomenon where a product or service becomes more valuable as more people use it. Bitcoin’s network effect is strong, and it has become a “if you can’t beat them, join them” situation for many cryptocurrencies. Instead of trying to compete with Bitcoin, many new cryptocurrencies are built on top of Bitcoin’s blockchain, using it as a foundation.

Bitcoin is less like Myspace or AOL, and more like the internet itself, but for money. A base layer value transfer protocol, like TCP/IP. While other cryptocurrencies come and go, Bitcoin remains the most stable and secure digital currency in the market. This is because Bitcoin has a decentralized architecture that makes it impossible to manipulate or control. Additionally, Bitcoin’s network effect is too strong for any other cryptocurrency to challenge.

Anyone who is in crypto knows that Bitcoin is one of a kind. Sure, there are stablecoins for less volatility, and faster transaction coins for a better medium of exchange, but these aren’t trying to compete. They have different value propositions. Other cryptocurrencies are PoS or straight up scams, and they aren’t even trying to compete with Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the money.

Bitcoin’s competition is actual gold, fiat currencies, and CBDC’s, all of which are flawed. While gold has been used as a store of value for centuries, it is not easily transferable or divisible. Fiat currencies are subject to inflation and government manipulation, and CBDC’s are centralized and subject to government control. The world would prefer neutral Bitcoin to Chinese CBDC Yuan.

One of the biggest reasons why Bitcoin has no competition is that any improvement in one characteristic of Bitcoin, such as improving its speed or scalability, leads to a reduction in another characteristic, such as Bitcoin’s level of decentralization or security. This tradeoff is known as the blockchain trilemma, and it is something that has yet to be overcome by any other cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin has the highest liquidity of all cryptocurrencies, meaning that it is the easiest cryptocurrency to buy and sell. Additionally, Bitcoin has the greatest number of users amongst all cryptocurrencies, giving it the largest network effects. This means that as more people adopt Bitcoin, its value will continue to increase.

Unlike every other cryptocurrency, there is no central point of failure with Bitcoin. Bitcoin has no Vitalik Buterin, no Ethereum Foundation, no Deltec bank like Tether, no fancy offices in San Francisco, no team of lawyers, no governance token, no VC-backing, no pre-mine, no small council, and no whales able to manipulate the system. This decentralized architecture has already insulated Bitcoin from attacks at the highest levels. No matter how much Bitcoin you own, you can’t change the rules, print more, censor, steal or prevent others from using the network.

Because of Bitcoin’s network effect, programmability, and superior monetary policy, direct alternatives have slowly faded away in importance. Bitcoin’s shortcomings have been accounted for within the Bitcoin ecosystem, such as scalability lightning/liquid, privacy lighting/taproot, interoperability wallets/exchanges, and energy usage mining council/education. It’s now commonly understood that Bitcoin is built for one thing, incorruptible value storage, and other crypto projects have moved on to other use cases.

Bitcoin is often hailed as the king of cryptocurrencies, and there are several reasons why it is considered one-of-a-kind and without any competition. From its inception to its current status, Bitcoin has weathered many challenges, including the emergence of new cryptocurrencies and their potential to surpass Bitcoin’s dominance. However, Bitcoin has remained the undisputed champion of the cryptocurrency world. In this article, we will discuss why Bitcoin is one of a kind and doesn’t have any competition.

Different Value Propositions

Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency and is built for one thing: incorruptible value storage. Other cryptocurrencies have different value propositions, such as faster transactions or more stable prices. However, these cryptocurrencies are not trying to compete with Bitcoin; they are offering different solutions to different problems. For example, stablecoins offer less volatility, and faster transaction coins offer a better medium of exchange.

Other Cryptocurrencies are PoS or Straight Up Scams

Many new cryptocurrencies claim to have improved on Bitcoin’s design by using a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism instead of Bitcoin’s proof-of-work (PoW) mechanism. However, PoS is untested at scale, and it is unclear whether it can provide the same level of security as PoW. Additionally, many new cryptocurrencies are straight up scams, preying on people’s FOMO (fear of missing out) and taking their money without delivering any real value.

Bitcoin’s Competition is Actual Gold, Fiat Currencies, and CBDCs

Bitcoin’s competition is not other cryptocurrencies but actual gold, fiat currencies, and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Gold has been a store of value for thousands of years, but it has several limitations, such as storage and transport costs. Fiat currencies are subject to inflation and government manipulation. CBDCs are a new form of digital currency that is controlled by central banks, and their effectiveness is still untested.

The World Would Prefer Neutral Bitcoin to Chinese CBDC Yuan

CBDCs are a new form of digital currency that is controlled by central banks. China’s digital yuan is the most advanced CBDC, and it has raised concerns about the government’s ability to monitor transactions and control the economy. Bitcoin, on

n. Bitcoin is the most secure and immutable blockchain in existence. Its proof-of-work consensus mechanism has been battle-tested for over a decade and has proven to be incredibly resilient against attacks. In contrast, many other blockchain projects use untested or experimental consensus mechanisms that are prone to vulnerabilities and exploits.

o. Bitcoin has the largest developer ecosystem of any cryptocurrency, with thousands of developers working on its core protocol and a vast array of third-party applications and services being built on top of it. This ensures that the Bitcoin network will continue to evolve and improve over time.

p. Bitcoin has the potential to become a global reserve currency, much like gold was in the past. It’s decentralized nature and limited supply make it an attractive alternative to fiat currencies that are subject to inflation and political interference.

q. Bitcoin is the most widely recognized and accepted cryptocurrency, with a growing number of merchants and businesses accepting it as a form of payment. This trend is likely to continue as more people become familiar with Bitcoin and its benefits.

r. Bitcoin’s open and transparent ledger provides unprecedented levels of accountability and auditability, making it an ideal platform for businesses and governments to conduct transactions and manage their finances.

s. Bitcoin is a truly global currency, with no barriers to entry or restrictions on who can use it. This makes it an ideal platform for cross-border transactions and international trade.

t. Bitcoin has a passionate and dedicated community of users and supporters who are committed to its long-term success. This community provides a valuable source of support, development, and innovation for the Bitcoin ecosystem.

o. Bitcoin has a fixed supply of 21 million coins, which makes it a deflationary asset. This is in contrast to fiat currencies, which can be printed at will by central banks, leading to inflation and a loss of purchasing power over time. Bitcoin’s fixed supply, combined with its increasing demand, has led to a significant increase in its price over time.

p. Bitcoin is increasingly being recognized as a legitimate asset by institutional investors. In recent years, large financial institutions such as Fidelity, BlackRock, and JP Morgan have entered the Bitcoin market, providing institutional-grade custody and trading services to their clients. This has led to a significant increase in demand for Bitcoin, and has helped to solidify its status as a legitimate asset class.

q. Bitcoin has a global reach, with users and nodes distributed all over the world. This means that Bitcoin is not subject to the whims of any single government or jurisdiction, and is truly a global currency. This makes it particularly attractive to people in countries with unstable or oppressive governments, who may not have access to traditional banking services.

r. Bitcoin is becoming more user-friendly over time. While it was once difficult for the average person to buy and use Bitcoin, this is no longer the case. There are now numerous exchanges and wallets that make it easy to buy, sell, and store Bitcoin, and there are even Bitcoin debit cards that allow users to spend their Bitcoin at merchants that don’t yet accept it directly.

Bitcoin is the Manhattan project for human freedom

It’s an enormous, globally coordinated research and development initiative:

An open source software project aimed at building an unstoppable internet-native monetary system.

A tech stack – which implements fair, neutral money and protects human rights for 8 billion people.

Fighting back against authoritarianism and the encroachment of a digital Orwellian surveillance state.

There’s a lot more to bitcoin then you might realize.

Nostr

CivKit

AI

Lightning Network

Fedimint

Cashu

Whirlpool

Bluewallet

Mynode

In order to understand what bitcoin is, you have to understand what money is.

Money is a technology to move value across space, time and scales. Money stores your time and energy to be used in the future.

For example you can build cabinets and trade that for a day at a spa.

Money allows for complex exchange, trade specialization, and is fundamental for civilizations with advanced economies.

Money is in fact one of the oldest inventions of civilization itself, it even predates writing. In fact the first forms of writing were credit spreadsheets, of who owed what to whom. Money was so important in society we had to invent writing to keep track of it! It’s such a primal tool that we have even taught animals how to use it.

And it’s so ubiquitous that many of us take it for granted. 

Money is by far the most important good in an economy. It’s half of every single transaction. Not only is it extremely important on an individual level, but it’s one of the fundamental technologies in the development and sustainability of society itself.

Everyone intuitively understands that it’s always about the money. Always has been.

Money isn’t Real

Because the value of money derives not from it’s consumption, but for the use to trade it for something later, money really is completely made up. It’s an abstraction, it’s a shared hallucination, it’s not real.

Money is a shared cultural hallucination. It’s a shared delusion. We walk around and associate with other people on the basis of germ-ridden pieces of cotton printed with green ink…just by exchanging these pieces of cotton, you could create social relationships, transactions and trade– you could feed yourself, shelter yourself, etc. It’s based on the assumption that if you give me a dollar today, someone else will accept that dollar in exchange for something of value tomorrow. Value comes from the assumption that I can use it again.

Andreas Antonopoulos

Without the shared belief that something is money, it no longer becomes money. Money is the belief itself.

The real question is, why do people believe in certain monies over other ones? What makes a good, trustworthy money?

Bitcoin prioritizes trust and security for this reason. As you’ll soon understand, bitcoin was designed to be superior to all other forms of money so that it will be chosen voluntarily by the market in the long run.

The Textbook Definition of Money

The textbook definition of money is that it serves three functions: as a store of value, a medium of exchange and a unit of account. i.e. you save dollars in your wallet to buy something for dollars which has it’s price listed in dollars.

This definition is good for telling us which things are used as money currently, but it doesn’t tell us anything about how to judge new monies. What’s often overlooked in this definition is the spectrum of moneyness.

For one, money is location dependent. Just because you can’t buy a soda in Pittsburg with Mexican pesos doesn’t mean pesos aren’t money.

Additionally, money sometimes specializes in one of the three functions (think of gold as a store of value and Pesos as a medium of exchange). This is because even though gold has served as money and a store of value for thousands of years, it’s heavy and not easily accepted by merchants.

All money throughout history has taken one of two forms – either physical, like a coin, seashell, salt, cigarette, necklace bead, or paper bill. Or as information in the form of a list of transactions and debts owed. A spreadsheet if you will, like a bank account, clay tablet, or credit card. 

On the internet, money HAS to be information, since it’s the informational realm, and therefore money has to be a spreadsheet/ledger. This was the great challenge in creating commodity money within cyberspace, and why it took so long for bitcoin to be created.

Bitcoin is Digital Commodity Money

The very nature of information is that it can be copied indefinitely, and before bitcoin there was no way to limit someone from just counterfeiting digital money without repercussion.

Sure you could just use fiat currency or trust a 3rd party like a bank or a corporation to keep track of your digital money, but debasement/counterfeiting of money has always been commonplace…and it’s the reason bitcoin was invented in the first place.

The true innovation of bitcoin was inventing a way to prevent digital money from being spent twice in an automated system without human control. Replicating the scarce nature of physical matter within cyberspace. Creating a new commodity that has limits on its supply, and can’t just be infinitely printed at the push of a keystroke.

This makes Bitcoin the invention of digital property. A scarce resource which is also digital.

The cool thing about digital property though is that you can build applications with it because it’s programmable. Property where you don’t need permission to launch a new tool or application, where there are no gatekeepers or barriers to entry, and where an open market of ideas can flourish.

Bitcoin is programmable money with so many use cases we haven’t even thought of yet. Due to its open source, permissionless nature, it will inspire innovation at the edges and the free marketplace of ideas can foster innovation.

Bitcoin is Designed Money

Not only is bitcoin digital, decentralized, programmable, commodity money, but it is also designed money.

Designed from the ground up with Austrian Economic sound money principles. Designed to have all of the best monetary properties, and designed to fix all of the shortcomings of gold.

Bitcoin isn’t just any money, it’s the best money ever made.

It’s sound money, it’s unstoppable money, it’s portable, verifiable, divisible, durable, fungible, and easily verifiable money.

You see, these qualities of money are extremely rare in nature. Gold was the best money for 5,000 years and yet it doesn’t even fulfill all of the traditional properties of good money.

(Which by the way, is why there was often a bi-metallic standard where silver fulfilled some of the divisibility and portability shortcomings with gold.)

Also unlike digital fiat money, bitcoin is borderless, permission-less, peer-to-peer, resistant to censorship, pseudonymous, extremely secure, and settles with cash finality.

Not only does bitcoin perfectly fit all of the traditional properties of good money, AND vastly improve on digital fiat, but bitcoin also has additional properties that were never before possible.

Bitcoin has perfect supply inelasticity, it’s programmable, it’s fully transparent, it’s unforgeable, unconfiscateable, trustless, and immutable.

Bitcoin isn’t just money, it’s the reinvention of money itself.

You can think of Bitcoin as a kind of clock, it keeps track of time across the tens of thousands of computers that make up its network. A decentralized clock if you will, keeping track of which transactions came first. Ticking away for eternity.

Not only does bitcoin tell time, but Bitcoin is an invention of a new kind of time.

Blocktime.

Consider each new block added to the blockchain as a tick or a tock. The nodes within the bitcoin network come to a consensus of what the blocktime is and what transactions are included in each block.

Bitcoin facilitates this decentralized variable time in a trustless manner, i.e. there’s no one ‘keeping time’ the computers do this algorithmically without interference.

Obviously the problem of timekeeping is a big deal when dealing with a ledger, the order of who sent money to who is extremely important. If someone has control over the order of transactions they can literally control who has what money.

It must be stressed that the impos­si­bility of associ­ating events with points in time in distrib­uted systems was the unsolved problem that precluded a decen­tral­ized ledger from ever being possible until Satoshi Nakamoto invented a solution.

Gregory Trubet­skoy

The fancy term for this is Bitcoin is a distributed timestamp server, mitigating disputes in the order of transactions, completely autonomously, through a complex interplay of physics and game theory.

Bitcoin is automatic and can’t be shut off. No one controls the bitcoin time chain, it’s a computer system that exists beyond the control of humanity.

It exists as permanently and beyond human control as time itself.

Refrences:

https://dergigi.com/2021/01/14/bitcoin-is-time/

Bitcoin is a global interconnected computer network made up of tens of thousands of nodes.

A computer network comprises two or more computers that are connected—either by cables (wired) or WiFi (wireless)—with the purpose of transmitting, exchanging, or sharing data and resources. 

IBM

A node is a connection point inside a network that can receive, send, create, or store data. A node is essentially [a computer] that can recognize, process, and transmit information to any other network node.

IBM

The nodes [computers] that make up the bitcoin network all run the same free open source software. This software is a language that allows these computers to interact with each other, and it governs the rules of the system.

Specifically, bitcoin is a peer-to-peer network, where every computer can communicate with any other computer directly. There’s no central server processing all of the data, and every computer is the same in the eyes of the network. There are no hierarchies, there are no master nodes that have any more power than any other nodes. Peer-to-peer means that bitcoin has a flat topology, every node is equal.

The nodes constantly pass around verify transactions, and importantly, all of these computers have the same copy of the ledger. When someone makes a bitcoin transaction all computers in the network update their ledger together. Therefore bitcoin is on all of the computers in the network at the same time.

Because all nodes run the same software, all members of the network must adhere to the consensus rules and monetary policy in order to send and receive transactions. This makes it impossible for one single person or group to cheat the system or adjust the rules like they can with fiat money.

You can think of the bitcoin network kind of like a big mushroom, where there’s not really a brain. It’s all just one big blob. Or you could even think of Bitcoin as the brain itself, with electricity pulsing throughout the network to build one self-sufficient, autonomous, system.

And to confuse you even more, bitcoin is also the name of the software that the nodes are running on the network.

So to recap: bitcoin the currency, is sent over Bitcoin the network, by computers running Bitcoin the software.

Bitcoin is the next evolution in money. It’s a 21st century monetary technology that will outlast our fiat currency system. Bitcoin is money for a type one civilization.

Bitcoin is not just a currency, it is a complete reworking of our global monetary system.

It is the first digital system of money that is completely decentralized.

Decentralized means its spread out, it exists everywhere, and no one is in control. This is the biggest differentiator between bitcoin and everything else that has ever existed.

Bitcoin is an electronic peer-to-peer cash system based on a distributed digital ledger called a blockchain or timechain. The ledger includes transactions approved by the peer-to-peer network instead of a central authority.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin is a decentralized P2P transaction technology. It’s Peer-to-peer because there’s no one in the middle of the person you’re transacting with. Bitcoin is self running computer code which facilitates transactions automatically. It’s an independent third party software which holds no allegiances, and runs completely on its own. 

What is bitcoin?

Bitcoin isn’t just money, it isn’t just a digital asset, and it’s not just software.

Bitcoin is a network. An internet protocol, and a technology stack. It’s layers upon layers of different apps, companies, software, hardware, networks, miners, implementations, alt-chains, smart contracts, decentralized protocols, services, tools and exchanges, which together form this unstoppable global public monetary infrastructure. It’s a publicly accessible global bank, global monetary system and global financial system.

The reason bitcoin is so revolutionary is because it’s so unique. There’s never been a money that’s digital, finite, uncontrollable, and runs its own publicly available monetary system. One which was engineered from the ground up to have all around superior monetary properties, and exist within an entire network of trustless protocols facilitating payments and contracts all running on their own.

Bitcoin is a reinvention of money itself.