Anyone who has been in the bitcoin space for more than a few months has likely read a headline or two like “Bitcoin is Dead” or “R.I.P. Bitcoin. It’s Time to Move On.” but those of us who actually understand bitcoin know that it’s far from dead. Not only is Bitcoin not dead, but it’s actually more accurate to say that bitcoin is undead.
History Repeats Itself
When the internet began to gain traction, lots of people who were entrenched behind the walls of their legacy system all laughed at the idea of the internet ever going to achieve mainstream adoption. Aside from a small collection of nerds and cypherpunks, people laughed at the idea that everyone was going to actually buy one of these “personal computers” and then use them to connect to this “internet thing” and share information between each other. “That’s never going to catch on” and “That’s a fad” were a few of their doubts. After all, why would we need to send information on a computer when we already had fax machines?
It’s a shame that they’re on the wrong side of history but I have a feeling that those same people have come around to the idea of a more peer-to-peer architecture for how we share information with each other.
We are seeing a similar behavior right now with Bitcoin. It’s the rogue new internet protocol that established legacy financial providers laugh at from behind the regulatory moat surrounded by an army of lawyers. While this approach might have worked well for them in the past, they don’t have the luxury of hiding behind their political connections any more. Now it’s time for one of the most powerful and longest standing institutions to be challenged by an open source math equation run by volunteers all around the world.
Naturally, the last to adopt will all continue to say “That’s not real money” and “Bitcoin is dead. Move on.” but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Bitcoin is definitely not dead.
Bitcoin Isn’t Dead
When I first heard about bitcoin back in 2010 or 2011, I did a little research and understood the concept right away. It was basically a digital version of sound money that couldn’t just be printed out of nothing like paper fiat money could. I needed to figure out how to buy some but all of the forums and message boards I went to were all telling me that the only way to buy them was to wire money or send an envelope full of cash to some sort of place in Japan named Mt. Gox. To me, that went against the whole idea of bitcoin. The idea is that I don’t have to have a bank to send money and I didn’t want to just wire money to a perfect stranger on the other side of the planet so I did what most of us did back in 2011. I didn’t buy any bitcoin and I continued living my life.
While I thought the idea of Bitcoin was amazing, I said to myself “If this is as robust as everyone seems to think it is, then it won’t die and I can buy some in the future.”
Now, let’s fast forward a few years to sometime in early 2013 when bitcoin came back into my life. I was out for a happy hour with some co-workers and I distinctly remember overhearing one of them saying to the other “What do you mean that you mine them?”. This caught my attention and I asked “Wait…are you guys talking about bitcoin?”. They were both a bit shocked that I had heard of it but I didn’t know very much at the time aside what I had read in hacker forums and various cypherpunk manifestos a few years prior. I asked why they were talking about it and apparently something drastic had happened in Greece and Cyprus with government bail-ins and anyone with more than a certain amount of Euros in their bank accounts had their money seized to pay for bankrupt government programs and terrible monetary policy.
When news of this spread, there was a run on the banks in both countries. People were looking for a safe place to put their money and Bitcoin seemed to provide that safe haven. In a desperate attempt to preserve their wealth, a number of Greeks and Cypriots put their money into bitcoin and that was enough to drive the bitcoin price up to a new all-time-high and push bitcoin into the social media feeds of my work peers.
Over the course of the next 6 months or so, the price of bitcoin had jumped from about $100 up to around $1,000 with all sorts of volatility along the way. At that point, it became very clear to me that bitcoin never died. Bitcoin isn’t dead. Bitcoin is here to stay like an autonomous computer zombie that keeps droning on regardless of the world around it. Bitcoin isn’t dead and it isn’t going to die anytime soon.
Bitcoin Is Undead
Bitcoin is a unique and fascinating phenomenon that can rightfully be called “undead.” It does not have a brain or consciousness, and yet it never stops working. It just keeps on offering a never ending incentive to add new blocks to the longest proof-of-work chain in exchange for a reward. Its unique ability to remain immune to manipulation, censorship, and political influence is what makes it the most robust money in history. You can’t use weapons or force against it because it is just math hashes and digital signatures. There is no single point to attack. Each and every bitcoin node is part of a hive-mind network who are distributed all around the world like an undead army of computers verifying each and every transaction in every block.
Bitcoin is not alive like a human being who can be regulated, captured, and imprisoned. Bitcoin isn’t dead like some centralized fad or AOL. Bitcoin is undead which allows it to continue working no matter what, making it a truly unstoppable force.
Banking Is Dying
The banking industry as we know it today is undergoing a major overhaul, with some experts suggesting that it is on the verge of dying. Branch closures are becoming more frequent, and the traditional methods of money lending are changing. We are now doing more and more things online with our phones and have access to more powerful financial tools from startups with fewer than 100 employees.
The internet has disrupted all sorts of legacy industries but banking has been mostly unaffected. Historically, anytime anyone has attempted to create an alternative to banking or money, the banking elite make a few phone calls and have the government shut down anything that might compete with their monopoly but bitcoin is changing that.
Bitcoin isn’t a company with an HQ or CEO. It’s math and you can’t easily shut down math.
In a letter from the JPMorgan Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon wrote in a letter to shareholders: “Silicon Valley is coming. There are hundreds of startups with a lot of brains and money working on various alternatives to traditional banking.” This is not speculation from some sort of conspiracy theorist. This is coming from the CEO of one of the oldest and most powerful banking institutions on the planet. There are now countless new financial tools that are helping people move, transact and store value and Bitcoin is one of them. The banks know that banking is changing, with or without them.
The ones yelling that bitcoin is dead are typically the ones who stand to lose the most by Bitcoin gaining traction. The harsh reality is that banking is dying. It needs to constantly rely on external forces to get you to use their monopolized system. They rely on never ending money printing to always be able to provide a lender of last resort. Banks rely on all sorts of financial witchcraft to get bailed out when they over extend themselves and lend too much money. Only a dying system needs to be put on life support and constantly bailed out by government.
Final Thoughts
Bitcoin isn’t dead. Bitcoin isn’t dying. Bitcoin just is. It simply continues to grow as miners continue to produce hashes, nodes continue to verify transactions, hodlers continue to stay humble and stack sats, and builders continue to produce useful bitcoin tools and services. Bitcoin doesn’t take time off or have banking hours. Bitcoin doesn’t rely on bailouts or life support from central banks and the governments that have grown up around them. Bitcoin just keeps droning on like some sort of financial zombie that keeps adding new blocks because bitcoin isn’t dead. Bitcoin is undead.
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