Bitcoin has accomplished one thing that once would have been unthinkable back in its early days: it managed to establish a peer-to-peer monetary network on the internet that doesn't require a centralised entity to oversee it. But I sometimes question whether we are falling in love with Bitcoin simply on the strength of what it has done thus far.This raises another intriguing prospect that it won't be the value of Bitcoin or even its position as a rival to Fiat currencies that will matter most. It may be the ideas and infrastructure surrounding it that make the difference.
Bitcoin provided a real implementation of digital scarcity in tandem with a usable, publicly auditable, ledger. Ideas like self-custody, permissionless transactions, decentralized validation, and non-custodial monetary systems have had an impact on conversations well outside the bitcoin ecosystem.Additionally, Bitcoin is evolving. The base protocol was designed to be conservative and new technology and applications can operate on top of it. The Lightning Network, for instance, seeks to implement faster and cheaper payments as an overlay that still use Bitcoin as the settlement layer.A further intriguing social impact. Bitcoin has inspired its followers to read into and reconsider assumptions that they might have taken for granted before: Who is in charge of money? What makes digital goods limited?
How much trust should we put into banks?
These questions can stay unanswered no matter how high, low or unpredictable the value of Bitcoin is.All of this of course does not ensure Bitcoin reaching a certain future destination. Technology can take unanticipated trajectories, and adoption is influenced by many social, economic, technical and regulatory issues.That's why I think the question is more interesting than just asking if Bitcoin will go up or down.Maybe, ultimately, the most significant outcome of Bitcoin will not be its high water mark on the price charts, but the systems, technologies, and ideas it inspired.Perhaps we've already seen the largest effect Bitcoin can have.Or maybe we haven't got it yet.
How could Bitcoin best change the long-term future?
source code 1:
https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf?utm_sourcesource code 2:
https://developer.bitcoin.org/?utm_sourcesource code 3:
https://lightning.network/?utm_source