Some chat in the "what does everyone do for work" thread about bitcoin. I love talking about it, keen to chat with anyone if you're keen, so starting this thread to avoid further thread hijacking.
Happy to talk about other cryptocurrencies in reference to bitcoin, and explain other crypto-related things, but if you want to chat about NFTs/DeFi investment etc etc, then perhaps start a new thread for that.
To kick things off, this was the comment I posted in the other thread about it;
Everyone will have their opinions on bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, NFTs and other things associated with that world. A lot of them will be very different, and will be backed by their different levels of education, knowledge, and personal opinions.
To sum up my own journey so far...
I have been studying bitcoin, economics and monetary history in my spare time for the past 14-16 months. The first few months of that included learning about other cryptocurrencies before I understood the key difference between bitcoin and everything else: Decentralisation.
Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that cannot be changed, controlled or shut down by a single individual or at the very least, a small group of individuals (e.g. the "ethereum foundation" that runs ethereum). Bitcoin simply has no one in a position like that, it is a truly decentralised, unowned, uncontrollable blockchain.
Think of it more as equivalent to the internet. It's a protocol for the future of the financial world, basically. The difference from the internet is that the protocol itself is also a store of value. You can own a part of it. And if you store and secure it correctly, then it is actually the only thing in your life that really is owned by you, and cannot be taken by anyone else - more so than your house, your bank funds, and the clothes on your back. Any of those can be forcibly taken from you. Bitcoin cannot (again the important caveat though - you must store and secure it correctly).
Bitcoin is actually many things though. It is compared to other stores of value and investments often (stocks, precious metals, fiat money), and those comparisons are fair. But it is also compared to other monetary networks, because it is also a monetary network as well - e.g. visa, mastercard, western union, the swift banking system etc.
The coolest thing is that on almost any credible measure, bitcoin beats every other store of value, and every other monetary network.
Bitcoin is to finance, what the internet was to communication. And that also means it is difficult to describe and understand, just like the internet to the average person in the early 90s.
I can't give financial advice here, I must stress that you have to do your own research and understand these things before you decide to purchase some for yourself, but the most important thing to note in my opinion is that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are two extremely different things. Where bitcoin is an internet-level technological advancement, other cryptocurrencies are more like private blockchain start-ups. They are not competing in the same ballpark. There are use cases for them for sure, and some will be very successful. But bitcoin is living in a different reality. It is permissionless, unhackable, unconfiscatable, and it bends the knee to no company or individual or government or anyone else. It is simply there to be used, by anyone and everyone, just like the internet protocol.
Happy to talk about other cryptocurrencies in reference to bitcoin, and explain other crypto-related things, but if you want to chat about NFTs/DeFi investment etc etc, then perhaps start a new thread for that.
To kick things off, this was the comment I posted in the other thread about it;
Everyone will have their opinions on bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, NFTs and other things associated with that world. A lot of them will be very different, and will be backed by their different levels of education, knowledge, and personal opinions.
To sum up my own journey so far...
I have been studying bitcoin, economics and monetary history in my spare time for the past 14-16 months. The first few months of that included learning about other cryptocurrencies before I understood the key difference between bitcoin and everything else: Decentralisation.
Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that cannot be changed, controlled or shut down by a single individual or at the very least, a small group of individuals (e.g. the "ethereum foundation" that runs ethereum). Bitcoin simply has no one in a position like that, it is a truly decentralised, unowned, uncontrollable blockchain.
Think of it more as equivalent to the internet. It's a protocol for the future of the financial world, basically. The difference from the internet is that the protocol itself is also a store of value. You can own a part of it. And if you store and secure it correctly, then it is actually the only thing in your life that really is owned by you, and cannot be taken by anyone else - more so than your house, your bank funds, and the clothes on your back. Any of those can be forcibly taken from you. Bitcoin cannot (again the important caveat though - you must store and secure it correctly).
Bitcoin is actually many things though. It is compared to other stores of value and investments often (stocks, precious metals, fiat money), and those comparisons are fair. But it is also compared to other monetary networks, because it is also a monetary network as well - e.g. visa, mastercard, western union, the swift banking system etc.
The coolest thing is that on almost any credible measure, bitcoin beats every other store of value, and every other monetary network.
Bitcoin is to finance, what the internet was to communication. And that also means it is difficult to describe and understand, just like the internet to the average person in the early 90s.
I can't give financial advice here, I must stress that you have to do your own research and understand these things before you decide to purchase some for yourself, but the most important thing to note in my opinion is that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are two extremely different things. Where bitcoin is an internet-level technological advancement, other cryptocurrencies are more like private blockchain start-ups. They are not competing in the same ballpark. There are use cases for them for sure, and some will be very successful. But bitcoin is living in a different reality. It is permissionless, unhackable, unconfiscatable, and it bends the knee to no company or individual or government or anyone else. It is simply there to be used, by anyone and everyone, just like the internet protocol.