Bitcoin (BTC) was officially launched on January 9, 2009, when the genesis block was mined. The coin has seen quite a number of resistance to the revolution it aimed to usher in, especially for the existing product and services in the financial ecosystem, which favors the institutions more than the populace. Part of the resistance Bitcoin has withstood over the years is the issue of regulation. Many apex banks and monetary authorities struggled to provide accommodations for the new cryptocurrency and as such, the coin’s early adoption was quite wobbled. Just as with any novel innovation, the period when the invention is unveiled might pose a lot of challenges, but once its potentials are realized, its boost can only be limited based on the innovation’s model. Bitcoin’s relevance was realized in less than a decade and the coin is continually heralding series of new milestones in its bid to revolutionize the payment ecosystem. What Major Problem(s) Has Bitcoin Come to Solve? Primarily, the creation of Bitcoin was aimed at enabling an alternative means of transferring funds besides fiat currency. These simple use case of Bitcoin has helped nations with troubled financial systems. The Bitcoin money transfer provisions are aimed at making cash transactions faster, more secure, and with lower fees. Of these positive perks, Bitcoin also has at its center the aim to instill the principle of decentralization in financial transactions. With decentralization at work, the banks and other financial institutions that act as the intermediary between the customer and those who churn out monetary policies (Central Banks) are eliminated and users can conduct peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions. This decentralized model of facilitating monetary transactions comes off as one of the powerful provisions in the Bitcoin source for which the early adopters of the cryptocurrency acknowledged. While Bitcoin seeks to combat the high fees charged by the banks with its relatively low fees, the other altcoins that succeeded took this incentive to a next level, but the pace was clearly set and defined by BTC. However, the use of Bitcoin has taken a different turn over time, following its growing rate of adoption by big multinational corporations around the world. Is Bitcoin Deviating from Its Fundamental Tenets Now, Bitcoin is gaining remarkable attention as a hedge against inflation and as a store of value, partly because of its inherent volatility that can sway its price to new highs. This volatility is however a two edge-sword, while it can boost the price of the coin, it can also steer a bearish plunge in Bitcoin. Bitcoin as a store of value is a testament to the uniqueness of the coin to serve multiple functions, and with the fact that the inventor Satoshi Nakamoto modeled the coin as a currency of the future, more use cases may evolve over time. In all, the early adopters of BTC who embraced the cryptocurrency for its uniqueness as a digital currency will take solace in the fact that 12 years after the coin was introduced, it is still serving its function as a currency while it has purportedly picked on new roles.
The post A Decade After Its Launch, Is Bitcoin Working As Designed? appeared first on Cryptoknowmics-Crypto News and Media Platform.
from Live Crypto News – Cryptoknowmics-Crypto News and Media Platform
