Andreas Antonopoulos: Bitcoin is different from digital currency and is a platform for building trust

As 2017 arrives, Andreas M Antonopoulos, one of the most respected figures in the cryptocurrency community, has shared his expertise in his new book, The Internet of Money, which includes outlines of all the speeches, courses, and interviews he has participated in over the past three years, as well as all the articles he has published.
The new year will offer endless possibilities for the world of Bitcoin and digital currencies, so what can we learn from Antonopoulos’s views? Here are some excerpts:

What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a digital currency, but it is different from digital currency. Saying Bitcoin is a digital currency is like saying that the Internet is a new type of telephone, which sounds like the Internet is only related to email. The currency function is only the first step in the application of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a technology, a currency, and a completely decentralized cross-border payment and transaction network. It does not need to rely on banks, let alone governments.

P2P Currency

Money is a tool for humans to communicate value and is a form of expression of the value of products and services. Money is one of the foundations of social interaction because value communication can generate social connections. Therefore, money is a very important part of the social structure.

Privacy, Identity, Surveillance, and Currency

I don't have a Swiss bank account, but I own the entire Swiss bank.

Innovation, Disruption, and Bitcoin

Bitcoin is bound to be the final winner because of its openness. In this world full of activists and experimenters, openness will win because it can promote cutting-edge technological innovation.

Dumb networks, innovation, and the carnival of the commons

Bitcoin is a dumb network, which is one of its most notable and important characteristics.

To run a new application or innovation in a dumb network, you only need to add it to the terminal. Because the dumb network is fully capable of supporting smart devices, you don’t need to make any improvements to the network.

Unlike most financial networks, Bitcoin does not suffer from the tragedy of the commons. ^[1] You cannot innovate in traditional financial networks. VISA’s innovations only benefited them; MasterCard’s innovations did the same; SWIFT’s new features were invisible to consumers; and if Bank of America came up with an innovative solution, they would make sure they were competitive and that other banks didn’t copy their solution.

This phenomenon is not simply due to the principle of exclusion; it is due to the tragedy of the commons. However, in the field of Bitcoin, you will only see the commons carnival. Bitcoin will only get better and better due to frequent use and deployment.

Infrastructure Reform

In the next 15 to 20 years, we will witness a transformation in the financial industry's infrastructure.

Money is a language

Currency is a form of expression and a language tool. It is no longer controlled by the issuer. We are the masters of currency, because only users can decide how to use currency and it is users who give currency value.

We are about to start treating currencies as applications, so we need an interface to unify the currency experience. In the future, our wallet may contain more than 150 different currencies.

Bitcoin Design Principles

The advent of Bitcoin represents a radical break with the past, so your in-depth knowledge of traditional currencies will be detrimental to your understanding of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin needed to be designed. It was created by engineers and is inscrutable.

Currency = Content Type

Bitcoin transactions can be conducted over extremely insecure Wi-Fi; they can also be done using smoke signals, light signals, or even carrier pigeons. The content of the message can never be stolen.

In today's world, money has gradually evolved into a type of content. However, defenders of the traditional payment system still stubbornly believe that banks are the representatives of the nature of money. They are indeed the representatives of the nature of money, but they cannot determine where the nature of money lies.

The principle of trust

Bitcoin is not what you think. It is a platform, not a payment network, not a currency, and not a banking system. It is a platform that ensures the existence of trust.

Bitcoin Scaling

I can picture a scene that many people can't imagine: one day in 1992, I spent just one afternoon browsing all the web pages on the Internet. Because there were only two websites on the Internet at that time. I thought, my God, this is a big problem! The Internet can't expand.

Bitcoin also lacks the ability to scale. If we are lucky, Bitcoin will be like the Internet and will not scale for the next 25 years.

Every year, the next generation of applications cannot scale, while the previous generation of applications can scale successfully.

Notes (↵ returns to text)

1. The commons is a resource or property that has many owners, each of whom has the right to use it but has no right to prevent others from using it, and each of whom tends to overuse it, thus causing the resource to be depleted.