No reason to reinvent Bitcoin: Part 2

To understand how Bitcoin can be thought of like the wheel, we have to go back to the beginning.

Satoshi Nakamoto launched the Bitcoin protocol in January 2009 to provide a new monetary option that couldn’t be controlled or manipulated by untrustworthy third parties.

To do this, the first need was to solve for the double-spend problem, thus removing the need for third party trust to reconcile transactions among two parties. This in itself is worthy of a Nobel prize. However, on it’s own, does not make Bitcoin analogous to the wheel.

For a trust-less, computational based monetary system to work, it needs two key components that allow the protocol to operate. This forms the “wheel” that can be built upon and thus used in endless applications.

These are:

Decentralization –

All nodes confirm transactions following the protocol rules at an average of every 10 minutes in the blockchain, creating one shared verifiable record among these thousands of record keepers (nodes) from the Genesis block to current day

Security –

Miners, through use of real world energy (electricity), are continuously incentivized via block rewards and transaction fees to secure the network through Proof of Work cryptographic hashing, thus achieving consensus among the decentralized nodes

With the decentralized and secure protocol in place, the “wheel” has been created.

With the wheel in place, subsequent layers and applications can be built on top, bringing an endless amount of value to humanity. Some of this we’ve seen already (examples Lightening, Liquid, Fediment), and many more are to come.

It’s key to remember, the wheel was iterated and improved over thousands of years, and it will take time for the additional layers and applications to form, providing incredible value to humankind.

Just as all cars have wheels; people, companies, and countries will choose the Bitcoin protocol to wheel their financial system to the 21st century and beyond.

No one today questions why we use the wheel. In the future, Bitcoin will be so integrated into the financial system, no one will question or need to realize why it’s being used in the first place.

There’s been no legitimate reason to date to reinvent the wheel.

There’s no reason to reinvent Bitcoin.

https://zachsbtcthoughts.substack.com/p/no-reason-to-reinvent-bitcoin-part