What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of bitcoin?
What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of bitcoin? In fact, bitcoin can change a lot of things in our lives depending on how we look at it, what we see in it and what we want to achieve with it. So let’s talk about the three things any human being values most; privacy, equality and the environment. The most important economic decision one can make in their entire life is bitcoin and we are among the luckiest to be alive during this period of time.
Privacy
Bitcoin is not like any other form of previously made money. What makes it so different is that it allows every action and every transaction to be stored and made outside of any foundation, institution and organization’s hands. It gets rid of all rules and instead, replaces them with verifiable, incorruptible sets of rules that no one can ever take advantage of at the expense of somebody else. All this means that if bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general achieve mass adoption, and if one day people replace the old system with crypto, then humanity can also achieve its ultimate goal. Imagine a world where there is no corruption, no poverty, no personal data leakage, no environmental destruction and no theft.
Equality
Now let’s talk about the second matter that bothers people all around the world these days. Look around you, every society is currently dealing with “unnatural inequality” which means wealth and resources are no longer naturally distributed among members of the society. That being said, it is perfectly natural to have classes in a society. We all have different mindsets, we excel at different things, we are born and raised in different environments with different parents, teachers and friends, we all have different talents and choose different ways which can impact the outcome. However, that must not lead to 99.9/0.1 distribution of wealth. I’d like to differentiate inequality.
1. Static inequality
This is the kind of inequality that rules the world we live in right now. Societies today, are all victims of this kind of inequality and it only continues to make the rich, richer and the poor, poorer and an uncontrollable moral hazard is the natural consequence.
2. Dynamic inequality
Dynamic inequality is the state in which every single individual in a society plays by the same rules, regardless of their geographical diversity, class or any of the factors mentioned above. No one decides for anybody else and consequently, no one pays the consequence for somebody else’s bad decisions.
In other words, those in power can no longer make decisions on behalf of others. Although this complex system may seem a bit far-fetched due to the amount of effort, value and energy it requires, but it is not something bitcoin can’t fix. With bitcoin, each individual can bear the fruits of their efforts and it will no longer be impossible for the middle class to move between the upper class because no one will be unnaturally powerful.
Perhaps one of bitcoin’s greatest impacts on people’s lives is the transformation from static inequality to dynamic inequality. The third and final matter (the environmental impact and energy consumption of the banking system) may probably be the most important among all, but is unfortunately rarely understood.
Environmet
Bitcoin receives a lot of criticism regarding its energy consumption. The vast majority of people think of it as an environmentally disastrous asset while this is really not the case!
Take the banking industry for instance. The amount of energy consumed annually by the banking system and ATMs, not to mention all the metal, cotton, paper and plastic used in the production of bank notes and coins, is nearly 700TWh and it does not end there! It also produces 400 Mt of CO2, which is indeed considerable.
Bitcoin on the other hand, consumes only 113 TWh of energy per year and although it is somewhat impossible to calculate the proportion of renewables with a hundred percent accuracy, mining is increasingly becoming clean as miners continue to use renewable energy.
It is also interesting to know that bitcoin emits less than onefifth of what the banking industry and ATMs do, and less than half of what the gold mining industry does. Check it out for yourself. It is not bitcoin that is environmentally destructive. It is actually far more efficient than the current monetary and financial system. Every individual has the power to bring about changes and if an individual changes something for the better, the world consequently changes for the better. It all starts with you and me. I would like to finish with a quote from Ida Auken, a global leader and member of the global future council: “Welcome to 2030: I own nothing, have no privacy and life has never been better.” Think about it!
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