10 years ago Satoshi Nakamoto published the Bitcoin whitepaper, and we have a lot to celebrate.
Immortalized in the text, we can see what Satoshi’s vision was, and ultimately how it led to 10 years of continued progress:
“What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party.”
Of course, it wasn’t until January 3rd, 2009, that the genesis block for Bitcoin was mined. Bitcoin has remained one of the most stable and active networks on the planet since that first block. The Bitcoin network has been functional for 99.9828364713 % of the time since its inception.
Despite this, the number of “Bitcoin Obituaries” where Bitcoin has died currently sits at 315.
Look, this is a road we’ve been down many times before. There’s a lot of reasons to be for or against Bitcoin. Decentralization is a privilege, not a guaranteed thing. The governments of the world are not going to give up their control of the monetary supply easily. Blockchain is slow despite its numerous advantages in security and transparency over centralized systems.
Despite whatever arguments have been levied against Bitcoin and blockchain over these last 10 years, it’s still here and it’s not going away.
One constant in Bitcoin’s life is that it’s been overwhelmingly dismissed and underestimated. New technology has that effect, and DLT is certainly a paradigm shift
Hopefully, over the next ten years, we’ll see the rhetoric shift from questions of “if” to “when”. We’ll see more acceptance for a movement that isn’t trying to break up the banks, but make more transparent and efficient. We’ll see a move towards common-sense regulation and a push for innovation that benefits us all.
Satoshi’s vision was about saving us from ourselves.
We desire a more perfect system, and that can only be achieved through the crucible of trial and error and time.
We’ll get there.
In ten years, I hope to look back at the leaps and bounds of progress that we made together.
Decentralization is the future.