Human Nature & Bitcoin
By: Gian Esteves
Tags: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Philosophy, Cryptocurrency, Money

If you could make $50 million in a few clicks would you? Of course we all would, because of natural human greed, and this is what traders commonly do today using Bitcoin.

The original purpose of Bitcoin was explicitly stated by Satoshi in 2008 in the official Bitcoin whitepaper as a decentralized currency that would revolutionize the economic world of the 21st century. However, as time progressed, Bitcoin morphed into a speculative, make-money-fast trend, similar to an unregulated stock market.

This caused cryptocurrency to lose the meaning of “currency” transformed it into more of an asset instead, as if it were a stock. Further, people are betraying the main purpose of Bitcoin and are exploiting it for their own gain, and so bitcoin will only reach its goal of becoming a standardized currency if high volatility stops, with instantaneous transaction times that are not taxed.

The surge of Bitcoin in 2017 brought in new investors that were not well versed in the ideas of crypto the majority of these people were only in it for profit. Therefore, there has been zero real world integration of the coin, especially since several other projects and services do Bitcoin’s job better.

To continue, decentralization has become a buzz-word that looks good on paper, but might be dangerous. As revealed in its exchanges and the blockchain, Bitcoin is a plutocracy, and the whole economic system is run by whales.

Market manipulation can be blamed for every dip, spike, and linear path the price of Bitcoin has taken. It is immoral to manipulate the market like whales do, but most investors would probably do the same thing. These are the problems of a decentralized economy — human nature gets in the way. Of course, politely asking immoral people to be more moral isn’t realistic, as centralization is part of human nature; any resource can be controlled and centralized. People need to start asking themselves, “how can we use Bitcoin as a viable system of selling / buying goods and services”, instead of “how much money can I make?”.

The only way Bitcoin or any crypto has a chance of being adopted is if it stabilizes in value. However, adoption is only a fantasy since its volatile price is determined entirely by speculative investment and trading. Bitcoin has to be marketed once again as a currency, not an asset. However, its ideology does not mix well with the established credit and bank based economy of most countries.

Therefore, full adoption would require the backing of a government, but this would only lead into a centralized medium. Fundamentally Bitcoin is flawed, and it won’t escape the mask of being an asset that its users have put over it.

The rise of stablecoin has proven that they are the next step to the cryptocurrency world. Though still in its early stages, the main idea of their existence combines the security and stability of fiat currencies while maintaining the benefits of a decentralized crypto.

This means that there would be no whales to influence the price, as it would mirror the value of an established fiat. With these benefits, it would be easier for governments and current economies to migrate to crypto as it would be able to pay for insurance and integrate with credit. If we are ever going to see crypto be incorporated into a currency, a stablecoin checks all the boxes. Greed cannot manipulate this system, and so, it would be smart to postpone any interactions with crypto, volatile or not, until a stablecoin becomes entrusted.