Peer to Peer Money in Historical Context: Bitcoin

Check out the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-EpKQ6xIJs

In this video, he speaks of money as a source of communication, a social construct.

Then he explained of how money had evolved. First, we have objects that are useful for us, with barter trades. Banana trades for salt. And you can eat the food that is traded. Later on, feathers, rocks, etc are given intrinsic value that can exchange for items.

But the big changes come when precious metals (gold, silver, etc) are used as money. It takes skepticism to accept such rule, since gold is not edible.

And then there's the paper money, where you have your gold locked in someone's vault, trusting them for it, and got issued paper money. Paper itself doesn't have any value, and it's skepticism to people again to trust such parties to keep their money. It got accepted anyways.

And finally, plastic cards (bank cards). There's no physical "money" anymore, but digital. Another skeptical changes.

And finally cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin). Bitcoin is an acceptance as a network. It is not simply a payment system, unlike bank cards, which contains digital money. It is the decentralization of money, rather than having an authority holding your money. You own the money yourself, no one own it for you.

The bank gives you a small sum of interest per year, but it loans your money to other people requiring loaning in exchange for a large sum of interest. That's how they earn money. And you have no control over your money being loaned to others. Authority also have the right to prevent you from opening a bank account, if you're against the legal rights, or whatever reason.

But with cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, you don't owe anyone anything. They're yours forever. You control your bitcoin. You cannot control others' Bitcoin. Bitcoin is transnational, borderless.

Conglomerate, people whom wants control, aren't really scared of criminals using Bitcoin. What they're scared of, is losing control of everyone's money. They scared all of us use Bitcoin (cryptocurrencies).

Questions and answers

He speaks of intrinsic utility of cryptocurrency, which is making Bitcoin much more than just money: turning it into an internet of money.

Bitcoin isn't efficient, because it's like democracy vs monarchy. Monarchy is efficient: one person said it's so and so, and everyone follows. This is same as centralization today. Decentralization is like democracy: it isn't the most efficient method, but it's better.

Bitcoin should not be aiming to conquer central banking, nor trying to fight with any existing structure today. Instead, it doesn't need to. Banking system today will go obsolete per se, without Bitcoin existing. They fail on their own.