Pro2 Day 56: Blockchain and the Bull(ie)s

TOPIC 3 @wildcat Economy Jobs and Global Interactions

I already know @assia.k is going to come in here and tear me a new one and I am eagerly awaiting the challenge :^)

The Current State of (US) Banking

When pay someone in person for goods, you can pay them in cash. Simple, right?

When you pay someone over the internet for goods, you can pay them in cash, right? Not quite.

You need to have some line to a bank, whether it’s a debit card, credit card, or cash app. To have a bank account, you need to fill out an application of various lengths, divulging an insane amount of personal information such as your name, address, social security number, income level, and the list goes on. You bank application can be denied, and it’s well within the bank’s right to do. A bank is not a public service, it it just another business that manages your money for profit.

In addition to managing your money, they can LOAN out your money to others, and generate profit via the interest paid back. Do customers who have their money at stake get paid part of the profit? Not really, if you call that pathetic percentage of interest “profit”. But what about when the loans don’t get paid back? Who gets bailed out? Certainty not us bank customers.

Do the banks deserve their profits? Maybe back then, but everything now is computerized. Banks put forward almost no effort, yet reap all the profits with no personal risk to themselves. Does that seem fair?

In additional to “fairness”, those higher up on the financial rung have the complete uncontested ability to view the financial holdings of those lower to them, yet the same courtesy is not replicated if the lower man wants to see the wealth of those above them.

In the last vein of “fairness”, it is expensive to be a low-income bank customer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLwRZibUqL0 Low-income earners get charged all kinds of exuberant fees just for getting access to their hard-earned cash. Does that seem fair?

Enter the Blockchain

A long time ago, a mythical figure named Satoshi Nakamoto released Bitcoin to the public. Fed up with the current centralized banking system, they released a new technology called cryptocurrency, and named the currency itself Bitcoin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggvlgNMr_NE

Bitcoin wants to tackle the following problems outlined above:

• There is no need to divulge your personal information to get access to use the blockchain technology. All you need it an internet connection, and the onus of personal computer security (outlined later). You cannot be denied for any reason to use bitcoin, whether it be age, gender, income level, citizenship, or any number of limiters.
• There are no hidden fees to send bitcoin from one address to another or store it. All that’s required is the disclosed-upfront transaction fee, which is magnitudes cheaper than a money-order service.
• There is no middleman authority to prevent you from sending or receiving money. A bank cannot close your account, and a country’s government cannot prevent you from sending or receiving money from other countries.
• If you lose your cash in a ditch or it gets lit on fire, it’s gone forever. Bitcoins can never be destroyed, only have their access lost because all bitcoin is stored in the public ledger.
• Public ledger? A regular bank ledger is a list of all the transactions a person has in their account. Bitcoin’s public ledger is a list of transactions made by everyone throughout the entire history of bitcoin. Though you do not know WHO owns a bitcoin address, you will always know HOW MUCH an address has, a way of equalizing the playing field not present in centralized banking.
• Bitcoin can never be inflated. There will only ever be 21 million bitcoins ever created, so it is not subject to having new currency pumped into the blockchain (such as U.S. stimulus checks which can actually devalue the existing USD in currency).

Why Does This Matter?

Getting into Bitcoin is more than just investing in magic internet money. The principles behind it are what give it’s value: a hope that regular people can take back financial control and so much more from centralized authorities. For residents of countries with volatile local currencies, cryptocurrency can be a hedge against the crashing value of their local fiat. In an increasingly connected world, having a currency system that is instant and does not need to go through a middleman for approval and sending can be a HUGE game changing to equalizing the income potential of online businesses. Though cryptocurrency is not widely accepted by the masses as of today, its popularity continues to increase and eventually may disrupt the millennia of banking developed before it.

Subject to all things, cryptocurrency is not bulletproof. As we continually develop a larger digital footprint as the world continues to modernize, it is the onus of the users to protect themselves from exploitation in the lawless land of the internet. Bitcoin owners are ESPECIALLY familiar with what it takes to be safe on the internet, or else they will become former Bitcoin owners :joy:

There is a lot more I could gush about, but I’ll leave on this note. If there is a currency everyone can accept worldwide with no middleman stipulations, who benefits? The common man, of course.

@homeroom11