BITCOIN

THE WORLD CHANGING CURRENCY

Why do we need it?

Lambos

My Journey

Intro Dec '12
Enlightenment '16
All in since then

Disclaimer

Opinions
Careful of experts
Not financial advice
DYOR
Invest wisely

What is Bitcoin?

Confirmation Bias and Bitcoin

... has drawn from a variety of schools of thought: game theory, cryptography, hacker culture, the open source movement and libertarian ideology..

Bitcoin

Speculative Price

Volatile - Foreign Currency
Media Frenzy
Interesting in Short Term
Great for:
- Lambo's
- Memes
- Obituaries
- Bubble analogies

Utility and Tech

Same irrespective of price
Interesting Long Term
Great for:
- Disrupting old structures of power
- Creating global economies
- Decentralising trust

"In order to understand bitcoin, you need to understand money and, in order to understand money, you need to understand the history of money"

- Wences Casares

Yap People & Rai Stones

Money by Design

Attributes

Scarce
Durable
Divisible
Verifiable
Portable
Fungible

Functions

Medium of Exchange
Unit of Account
Store of Value

Bitcoin by Design

Scarce: Limited 21 million supply
Divisible: 1BTC = 100 000 000 Satoshi
Frictionless: Multi-medium transportability with almost real time settlement
Verifiable: Cryptographically secured
Durable: Global, Decentralised and Open Source

History of Money

Credit backed Barter: stones, shells, cacao beans
Commodity money: Barley, Tea, Pelts
- ~5000 years ago rare metals
- ~2700 years ago first minted coinage
Redeemable Money: Commodity backed paper money
- 17-19th Gold Standard
- Bretton Woods System
Fiat Money:
- 1971 Nixon Shocks
- ~40 years: Cheques and Digital Credit

"Fiat money is a currency without intrinsic value established as money, often by government regulation. It has an assigned value only because the government uses its power to enforce the value of a fiat currency or because the exchanging parties agree to its value"

Next Generation of Money

Cryptocurrencies:
- October 2008: "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" - Whitepaper
- Jan 2009: First version of bitcoin goes live

Why is Bitcoin Revolutionary?

The internet gave us a decentralised global network that allowed the sharing information

Bitcoin gives us a decentralised global network that allows censorship resistant transfer of value

Bitcoin brings into question the existing power structures.

"Just as the Enlightenment brought about the separation of State and Religion,

So does this technology provide of the possibility separation between state and money"

Power of choice
Checks and Balances
Economic Self Empowerment

Why separate Money from State?

Banking the unbanked
Remittance
Hedge against inflation/hyperinflation
Protect Wealth
Global Economies

Bitcoin Use Cases

So...Why do we need it?

Current System:
- Banks own your money on deposit
- Banks spend your money
- Subject to closed, centralised monetary policy
Bitcoin:
- You own your money
- P2P network with no intermediaries allows you to spend your money without fear of censorship
- Subject to predetermined, mathematical monetary policy written into code, open to all

Join the revolution

Twitter: @a21n_

Bitcoin Resources: lopp.net/bitcoin.html

Sources

Deeper Dive

Proof of Work

PoW Waste = Security of Network
Synonymous to current systems:
- Vaults, Security Guards, Electric Fencing
- Datacenters, Disaster Recovery Centers
- Counterfeit Preventions
- ...entire Banking infrastructure

Ecological Impact

Move towards stable green energy
Huge investments in sustainable computing
Energy usage not linear to adoption/transactions
- Auto adjusting difficulty
- First a year ran on < 5 computers
Innovations and protocol changes (PoS, DPoS)

Challenges

Scaling
Adoption
(de)centralisation
Regulation
End user security
User experience

The Future

Lightning (Instant, Low Fee Payments)
Rootstock (Smart Contract)
Tumblebit (Anonymous Payments)