1990.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Inventor of the World Wide Web.

It’s Christmas day and an exhausted Sir Tim Berners-Lee sits down with a cup of the finest English tea and sets up the very first successful communication between a Web browser and server via the Internet.

This was preceded by several years of strenuous campaigning by Sir Tim, now 62, to persuade professors, convince students, urge programmers and computer enthusiasts to create and build more servers and web browsers.

Sir Tim tirelessly begged for many years for what would soon come to create entire industries, inspire unprecedented innovation, disrupt traditional industries such as music, retail, travel, publishing, transport and change the world of human communication forever.

But why? We were plodding along just fine weren’t we? We’d existed wonderfully for hundreds of years without the single most important technology of the 21st century coming along and creating all this new opportunity.

Thanks, but no thanks Tim.

2008.

Bitcoin white paper. 2008.

November 1st, 2008. Satoshi Nakamoto, an anonymous computer programmer produced and published a paper on a cryptography mailing list. Detailing the ideas and fundamental foundations for ‘A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System’ and what the world now knows as — Bitcoin.

The technology wasn’t particularly groundbreaking, it’s essentially just computer code and the culmination of two decades of research and development by cryptographers and cypherpunks. But this time it was different. None had ever managed to solve all of the problems Satoshi did.

To this day the whereabouts of Satoshi Nakamoto are unknown. His last communication to the outside world was a private email sent to a programmer on April 23, 2011 stating: “I’ve moved on to other things. It’s in good hands with Gavin and everyone.”

Many theories have been discussed as to why Satoshi proposed this new currency alternative and one that stands out particularly is that it’s a response to the global financial crisis — owing to the note Satoshi left hardcoded in the genesis block (see below). Which was a reference to the front cover of The Times newspaper. Possibly suggesting Satoshi Nakamoto may have lived in the United Kingdom.

‘The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks’ (far right)

The Times 03/Jan/2009.

But why? Why should we consider abandoning a hundreds of years old financial system, in favour of this Bitcoin thingy. We’re doing just fine thank you very much.

Our banks allow us to store our money safely, they control it, well it’s ours but they use it, at their discretion. It’s safely controlled by a single authority whereas Bitcoin has no central authority. What’s it even backed by? Does it even have any intrinsic value?

I can transfer my money to around 23 countries within a few days, if I call my bank for permission first, of course. The rest of the world don’t have modern banking systems and in most cases no access to any form of bank account. Didn’t want to send it there anyway, I suppose.

If Wall Street implodes and there is another global financial crisis like 2008? Cyprus 2013? Or there’s an economic recession like the previous 47 in US history alone? Or the economy needs stimulating? Relax, it’s no problem — the federal reserve can just print some more fiat currency, increase liquidity and solve the issue. Just like Venezuela (see below) or the hyper inflation in Zimbabwe.

Paper money in Venezuela is so worthless that locals are weaving bags out of it.

There’s simply no need for a sound, hard money that’s mathematically backed, decentralised and deflationary in this digital age.

One that can be divided into millionths of units and accessed by every human being on Earth.

Rebuild free market capitalism?

Thanks, but no thanks Satoshi.