Why Bitcoin Mass Adoption DOESN'T MATTER (right this second) And That's OKAY.

There are four core reasons why the “mass adaption” like most people visualize with people using Bitcoin for everything all over the place isn’t happening anytime soon. (AND THAT ISN’T A BAD THING!)

Bitcoin is something that can be described over 50 different ways depending on who you ask, and every single definition you receive can and will be debated.

However, first and foremost, at the most basic level Bitcoin is an entirely new form of money.

Bitcoin has radically changed the way we think, store, transfer, organize, deal, and understand money from the top down over the last decade.

There are four core benefits to Bitcoin and why it has been so unstoppably successful over the last ten years. They all play a crucial role in the success of Bitcoin up until this point, and are critical to getting the technology to the next step in the future, while staying elevated above all other crypto alternatives. These are the Blockchain, Proof of Work, Governance, and the Monetary System Design.

The Blockchain

Now I know most of you have heard of blockchain technology at this point and very well think that is all there is to Bitcoin. Others may fall under the “Blockchain not Bitcoin” group, believing strongly that Blockchain itself can revolutionize areas of our world, but see Bitcoin as a bubble to be replaced by something better in the future. While a majority of people aren’t sure what they think and are probably over complicating things with all the noise surrounding crypto currency in general.

The reality is the Blockchain is simply an open ledger of accounting and is just one of the many qualities that make Bitcoin. It is essentially a decentralized database managed by a peer-to-peer network of computers all over the globe. This facilitates the transfer of bitcoin without the need of trusted third party, such as a bank, because the data it holds is public and immutable.

Proof of Work

The first question you might have regarding Bitcoin is why? Why is it so great and revolutionary? (Whats the big deal?)

The quick, simplest answer to this is that Bitcoin is the first workable solution to the double spending problem that can be deployed at scale. This is not a new concept by any means, in fact many large corporations and banks have been working on this since the early 90’s.

We saw many early versions of this such as DigiCash and HashCash fail. Coming from a completely centralized source these concepts always required trust in a third party or some sort of organization of people. Bitcoin allows systems to be secure with trust being minimized like no centralized system could ever get close to accomplishing.

By connecting everyone in the network and giving them a copy of the accounting ledger (blockchain) Bitcoin is able to manufacture trust without having a person/group/government/entity involved in anyway.

Governance

Bitcoin’s governance is based on a specific set of verification rules. Many coming directly from Satoshi Nakamoto, others being implemented over time to address bugs and other key issues.

The core development behind Bitcoin is also incredibly slow and accurate. Revolutionizing thousands of years worth of banking systems is by no means intended to be a fast project, Bitcoin is a 60-80 year project, minimum. This can be seen as a disadvantage over some of the quicker moving faster to adapt and evolve Alt-Coins, but it’s quite the opposite.

While all the new coins try to add new or innovative features that may or may not be useful Bitcoin can sit back, avoid the pitfalls, and implement and improve any new tech that comes along (if it’s truly revolutionary). Bitcoin can employ and implement any of these things on top of what will be the strongest infrastructure by a country mile.

The likelihood of a completely new technology or programmable coin coming along and getting close to Bitcoin is very low. Bitcoin has a number of advantages and head starts:

• Recognizability, Bitcoin has 10 years head start in the market and that’s only getting longer.
• Sell ability / marketability because of it’s head start Bitcoin is essentially what Coke is to the Soda market in the digital asset space
• Monetary liquidity
• Current market effects, unless it is completely flawed and experiences a bug, every 10 minutes more Bitcoins enter the ecosystem, they become more scarce, and the blockchain becomes more secure
• General mainstream trust, because there is no group or leader of Bitcoin there is a general trust placed in Bitcoin that only strengthens every transaction that going on the block. This would be close to impossible to recreate for any new coin being introduced to market.
• The Lindy Effect - The longer technology is in existence the harder it is to take down. If a new coin is created today what could it look like it 10 years? If it makes it 10 years and Bitcoin is still alive….what does Bitcoin look like in 20?

Because of these factors at play we should see a few more cycles of innovative coins and technology being created, with Bitcoin remaining the standard.

As time goes on and more of the 21,000,000 Bitcoins become claimed and trillions of useless Tokens and Coins come and go Bitcoin could eventually claim a lions share of the cryptocurrency market in a “winner take all” type scenario.

Monetary Design

As stated previously the monetary design of Bitcoin, especially when compared to traditional currencies, is damn near flawless. Most people look at the fact that it cannot be censored or seized and start to see its value. However, the most important feature by far is its unprintability.

Why? Because we need a system of money. Right now we primarily use the Euro, the dollar, or the Swiss franc. Is this because these systems are perfect and work without flaw? Or because they are the least bad and most accessible? The US dollar has increased its total supply by 6.2% this year alone, lowering the wealth of everyone who holds it worldwide.

This is the case with traditional fiat currencies. They can create more whenever they want, and they do. Devaluing your cash every time it happens.

There are only 21,000,000 Bitcoins and there can only ever be 21,000,000 Bitcoins. That will never change. Bitcoin is extremely scarce as 3-5 million of these could have already been lost forever, and 3-4 million is all that you will ever see on the open market at a time.

This scarcity increases every 10 minutes as more Bitcoins are mined and distributed. Even with gold, we are unsure of the total supply, and it can be created/mined at anytime.

This extreme scarcity and ever dwindling supply is what drives everyone and everything in the ecosystem. All governments across the globe use an inflationary monetary system even though top academics agree it’s not the best system longterm.

Although not ideal it’s always worked because these currencies are backed with metals recognized globally to have value, such as Gold and Silver. 47 years ago this changed and the US dollar is no longer backed by gold and silver.

Because the US dollar operates as an inflationary currency it incentivizes people to not store large amounts of it directly.

Large earners such as doctors, surgeons, and lawyers are forced to be part time investors on the side to diversify into real estate, stocks, bonds, and other investments that hedge against the devaluation of the dollar.

This also requires a large amount of outsourced bankers and brokers just to manage. All this just to preserve their earned wealth, not grow, preserve it over time. If these people could keep their wealth as cash for the same return, you can guarantee they will.

As long ago as the Bible days the basic financial guidelines was to keep 33% of your wealth in your business, 33% into real estate, and 33% in gold(currency). This model was completely viable and was even followed for the most part until very recently (1950s/60s)

With Bitcoin holders are assured that the percentage of supply will always stay the same. Even Gold is unable to say that.

This simple concept, now that it has arrived, is here to stay.

What will get us to that mass adaption?

Assuming bitcoin stays business as usual you can be assured it will continue to become more scarce as time goes on. As the value of traditional store of wealth assets decline around the globe or more governments become unstable, more wealth will be placed in the undeniability of math.

Since 1971 many governments have lost discipline when creating their currency and completely failed. Could this happen to more fiat systems? Is it already?

Bitcoin is
harder to track,
Harder to seize,
Harder to steal,
Easier to transfer,
Easier to securely store,
Impossible to duplicate,
Borderless, and
Highly deflationary.

The next generation of tech savvy people being brought up are aware of these principles and the gold standard hasn’t been around since 1971 leaving a lot of opportunity for a global store of value that cannot be interfered with by corrupt individuals or groups.

This is the reason a lot of countries use the Swiss franc. They have over 300 years of proven discipline. This means they don’t print too much of it incentivizing their residents to keep their wealth in their currency, limiting insecurity and credit issues.

What can placing wealth in a deflationary currency do on an individual basis?

With the current system “paycheck to paycheck” individuals who keep a majority of their wealth in operating currency are at a disadvantage to those who can store their wealth in appreciating assets. The individual who stores their wealth in currency is more likely to spend it since its always depreciating. Purchases like coffee, soda, clothes, toys, and other consumables are much harder to purchase if you have to sell assets to accumulate. This applies to someone storing their wealth in Bitcoin, because of its deflationary model it incentivizes you to hold and not spend.

This puts a lot more power back to the people. By not purchasing stupid shit it encourages people to become more financially independent and start longer term goals, crafts, and hobbies.

By putting wealth into Bitcoin people are electing to choose the discipline, transparency, and security of the mathematics, the machines, and the code versus the decisions of the small groups in power, where greed seems to always win.