What is Bitcoin, and why do you care?

Bitcoin is freedom for money.

Let me explain: Bitcoin is third “democratization” that I’ve had the privilege of living through.

The first was the Internet of course, the democratization of communication. No longer did you need a printing press, runners, trucks, call boys in order to make your voice heard. Now all you needed is WordPress and a good story. Look at Matt Drudge. He has singlehandedly revolutionized political reporting. His influence is at times stronger than the New York Times. And it’s just him and an assistant and a very, very simple website.

The second democratization is 3d printing, or “additive manufacturing”. It is the democratization of manufacturing and its in full swing. You no longer need a factory to make a product. You can already manufacture in plastic from your desk. In less than 10 years you’ll be able to do it in metal, in color with moving parts.

Bitcoin is the third democratization, the democratization of money. Right now, your money, the money you worked for, saved and earned isn’t really yours. The banks charge you fees for holding it (and sometimes lose it). Governments have confiscated it at times (remember Cyprus?). If you want to move it, there are restrictions as to how much and when, and if you want to spend large amounts of it, you must account for how you got it.

Bitcoin, and crypto currencies in general solve this problem. They are in essence a “trusted distributed public transaction ledger”. Imagine a hotel register. Guests sign in, date, room, etc … That is a transaction ledger. Distributed means that the machines that process that ledger, the “book” if you will, are spread throughout the world with many different ownership hands so that it is very, very difficult for them to collaborate to cheat. Public, because it is open for anyone to inspect.

And trusted, because that is the most important thing of all. Do I trust that you really have the money? That you haven’t spent it already, maybe even a second ago? Ensuring all of that is what the “mining” machines really do. The miners are the unseen heroes of Bitcoin. Without miners there is no coin.

The adoption of Bitcoin will drastically reduce the amount of financial control anyone can exert over your money. And without that control they can’t tax you and if they can’t tax you they can’t control you. They know this, they are scared and they should be.

With Bitcoin there are no borders to money. It flows as easily as water from a spilled cup upsetting the plans of the bankers to monitor, control, restrict, tax and otherwise devalue YOUR money.

Bitcoin is freedom for money. Switch to Bitcoin, free your money.