![\"laymanbitcoin\"](\"https:\/\/thebitcoinpodcast.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/laymanbitcoin.jpg\")
<\/p>\nMoney is a very old construct of the human existence. \u00a0It most likely developed right around the time of commerce. \u00a0Right around the time the very first human needed some thing to be an abstraction that represented other things. \u00a0As soon as this leap in abstraction was made the next leap was to see if a group or many groups could make this same leap. \u00a0Not to delve too deep into the history of currency, but in a nutshell, we have gone from seashells and salt, to golden tokens and certificates. Although the physical makeup of our currency has changed due to some properties being easier to utilize than others, the root that is common amongst all of the forms of money that we have chosen to use is faith. \u00a0Faith is what gives currency power; not shininess, governmental stamps of approval, and plausibly not even scarcity. \u00a0A person\u2019s need to not have to think twice that the abstraction they have placed on a token is the same exact abstraction \u00a0you have placed on a token is what emboldens that token\u2019s ability to drive commerce. \u00a0People don\u2019t think about monetary systems, they have faith in them, they believe in them. \u00a0This is partly why there are so many abrasive critics of bitcoin, it challenges their faith. Nevertheless there are a few reasons why the layman can have faith in bitcoin. \u00a0Bitcoin is mathematically driven, proven, and founded. \u00a0Bitcoin \u00a0can be publicly scrutinized and publicly analyzed. And, Bitcoin has a large amount of human intellectual capital backing it.<\/p>\n
Math is a wonderfully pure language that has been gifted to us. \u00a0An ability to communicate in a way that is rooted in logic and reasoning. \u00a0An ability to not only have a disagreement, but a provably true or false disagreement. Math is a great language to use as means by which we find truth. \u00a0What makes it so amazing is that by communicating in math the participants that choose to communicate use the same rules and play the same game. If a participant doesn\u2019t use the rules correctly then it is easy to spot. \u00a0Bitcoin emboldens this rules-based precedent. \u00a0The contributors in the bitcoin ecosystem must all play by the same rules. \u00a0If they do not, then they can not participate. \u00a0And, these rules aren\u2019t dictated by a man, or a group of men, or a group of groups of men…these rules are simply dictated by the laws of mathematics. \u00a0Which makes bitcoin a superior vessel for currency and commerce, because it\u2019s regulation is built into the protocol. \u00a0You can mathematically prove, without doubt, that someone has done a transaction if they publish the transactions ID. \u00a0There is no stamp of approval from some entity that has been given an abstract amount of trust by people that we have given abstract amount of trust. \u00a0There is just math. \u00a0Try to have someone prove that 1+1 does not equal two, barring some \u00a0random modulus, I guarantee that they can not.<\/p>\n
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Another reason why bitcoin does deserve the same level of faith if not more than we place on fiat currency is that Bitcoin is publicly scrutinized and analyzed. \u00a0Bitcoin is a distributed, public, decentralized chain of events. \u00a0Events that are tagged and ID\u2019d in a manner that allows anyone connected to the network to review a transaction. \u00a0That is a monumental feat. If this level of transparency existed just ten years ago then the prevention of cataclysmic economic crisis could have been avoided. \u00a0If professionals had a standard ledger to check in order to verify the truthness\u00a0of a transaction occurring then that would overhaul the financial industry in the best way possible. \u00a0Fraud and misinformation could screech to a halt when thousands of professionals can check to verify the exact same ledger. \u00a0Public scrutiny is also a slick phrasing for consensus. \u00a0And, that is what bitcoin allows. \u00a0A truth by consent of the masses. \u00a0A truth by consent of the world. \u00a0This has never existed before, and it deserves faith and trust.<\/p>\n
When I go to the gas station, I no longer have faith that when I swipe in my 50+ year old magnetic strip card, that the transaction is going to do exactly what I wish it to do. \u00a0Card fraud is increasing year-over-year, and banks, with their current payment rails are not doing a bang-up job of preventing this fraud. \u00a0Bitcoin does that prevention management by design! \u00a0And, the beauty of the design is that there are some of the world’s brightest and most passionate professionals working on Bitcoin, day-in and day-out. \u00a0The professionals working on the fiat money system may very well be bright, in fact I guarantee that they are; however, they aren\u2019t passionate. \u00a0They are just doing what they need to do to perpetuate an outdated system to keep a handful of people more powerful than they should be. \u00a0Bitcoin deserves the faith of the layman because the human intellectual investments that are being made on a daily basis. \u00a0There are individuals pouring work, top-level work, into Bitcoin to advance its utility as a global currency. \u00a0That much cultivated, pressure cooked, and dense intellectual creation is bound to achieve fruition as an unquestionably faith-deserving monetary system.<\/p>\n
I have never questioned one transaction that I have sent using the bitcoin protocol. Seconds after I send it, I can check to see if it has hit the network and then I go about my life and thirty minutes later it is mathematically proven that I sent that money, and it can not be reversed. Not, proven by what my bank says to the other party\u2019s bank, but proven by mathematics. There are a litany of reasons to keep faith in the Bitcoin monetary system, and any layman should rest assured that with enough base knowledge of the system, that their money does exactly what they wish for it to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Money is a very old construct of the human existence. \u00a0It most likely developed right around the time of commerce. \u00a0Right around the time the very first human needed some thing to be an abstraction that represented other things. \u00a0As soon as this leap in abstraction was made the next leap was to see if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","unlock_protocol_post_locks":"","publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebitcoinpodcast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebitcoinpodcast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebitcoinpodcast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebitcoinpodcast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebitcoinpodcast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thebitcoinpodcast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":604,"href":"https:\/\/thebitcoinpodcast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions\/604"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebitcoinpodcast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebitcoinpodcast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebitcoinpodcast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebitcoinpodcast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}