Internet was invented on January 1st, 1983. The number of websites increased to 130 in 1993. In 2001 only 7% of Internet users had broadband connection, majority of people did not have Internet and there were no online payments at all! 2011 – 555 million websites. 2022 – 2 billion websites, online payments have 45% market share, on average users worldwide spend 7 hours per day on the Internet.
Why do we say this? Because believe it or not, Bitcoin is the next major invention since the Internet in regards to finance.
What is Bitcoin
According to Satoshi whitepaper, “peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution“. The fact that Bitcoin does not need to rely on a “trusted” third party makes it unique. Why we say “trusted”? Numerous times this trust has been broken – canceled gold standard, gold seizure, inflation, banks bailout, bankruptcies and corruption. All these were due to human nature and we need a candid system which will serve financial needs without judgment and personal interests. This is Bitcoin.
Which problems Bitcoin solves
- Bitcoin banks the unbanked. World bank reported 1.7 billion of unbanked adults worldwide in 2017. And most of them do not have access to the financial institutions due to various failed verification checks. This means that all those people missing possibly life-changing opportunities. Without access to the financial institutions they cannot save, loan, send and receive payments online.
- Permissonless cross-border payment solution. You do not need any sort of permission from any who to spend or receive payments in Bitcoin network. On the opposite, banks like when you save money on your account, but when you decide to spend your savings, unnecessary questions may occur and bank even can prohibit the transaction. With Bitcoin you can pay to any person or a company anywhere is the world.
- Be your own bank. This is very important. Your Bitcoins are yours. No one else has access to it and no one can seize them from you or prohibit to transact. With the great power comes great responsibility. If you lose your Bitcoin “seed phrase”, these Bitcoins are lost forever.
- Low fees. There were billion U.S. dollars transactions which were sent at the cost of literally $1. No bank can offer this. 1% fee would equal to $1 million in transaction costs.
- Privacy. Bitcoin blockchain is public. Anyone can see any transaction information, sender and receiving addresses. But addresses are not linked to the identities. There are no KYC in Bitcoin and any one can create a new wallet address any time in a second without ID verification.
Magic Internet Money
That’s what Bitcoin was called on reddit back in 2013. In 2017 most people thought it a pyramid scam scheme. In 2021, institutional investors and big companies were adding Bitcoin to their balance sheets, thousands of merchants started to accept Bitcoin. Governments and countries legalize Bitcoin. Every halving cycle people get more and more used to these form of money. When you try it once there is no way back.
