What was the original purpose of cryptocurrency? Is Bitcoin dead?steemCreated with Sketch.

in #bitcoin5 years ago (edited)

What is it to use cryptocurrency? What was the original point, plan… the dream of it all?

Well, it’s good to remember the following 3 aspects or tenets, especially when we’re now seeing so many types of altcoins and projects emerge.

They are strong considerations to keep in mind, and there is only one crypto that (today) covers them all.


1. Trustless

No control or centralisation. No ‘custodianship’ required.

Not to surrender your private keys to anyone. Store crypto on hardware wallets where possible. 


2. Censorship resistance

The ledger cannot be interfered with or edited. Immutable.


3. Audit-able history

Verifiable money transactions (no fiddling the books), NOT held privately or off-chain, but publicly available for everyone to verify and check.


Think for a moment, about these points. Bitcoin was born out of banking crisis and corruption. Bitcoin has achieved the above.

So… beware many a young coin (that’s never been attacked). Beware centralised stablecoins!! Companies etc. are controlling these coins and they may well be a lot less secure than they claim to be. They are not cryptos to HODL. The use of stablecoins and government-issued cryptos etc. etc. will always be secondary, or more risky.


Obviously, many folk will forget these aspects until such advantages make themselves apparent.

Many banks and institutions will ‘adopt’ blockchain tech but this will be like intranet and the internet. In the end, the internet (an open access, inside-outside system) is the better option. Even shiny new enterprise-focused blockchains or DLT may work wonderfully, but they may be vulnerable. The road they are travelling on is not as robust as the Bitcoin network.

And so, a person should ask themselves why use certain ‘new’ coins, when they already have safer and more robust, tested (very decentralised) projects such as say... Bitcoin? 

Right now, it may certainly not have the best tech. But if it is replaced by something, then that something will need the above qualities to succeed. It will need the road, not just a fine car. 

And when systems fail, Bitcoin (or its unknown, future successor) will be there. The revolution has begun.

---------------------------------------

Orig. published at Ade's Press: independent insight on creative, green and geeky (crypto) stuff.

Note: some of this information comes from this great video on YT.


Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.35
TRX 0.12
JST 0.040
BTC 70625.87
ETH 3563.07
USDT 1.00
SBD 4.71