Bitcoin is the Bank
(From ‘Bitcoin is’, a series to help people understand Bitcoin)
Say I pay you via the bank: I instruct my bank; my bank grants permission, updates its private ledger and tells your bank; your bank grants permission, and updates its private ledger.
But if I pay you with Bitcoin, there are only two steps: I make an entry in Bitcoin’s public ledger, and the Bitcoin network confirms the transaction. And that’s it. I’ve sent you the money, and the transaction is complete.
Nothing physically moved: the money stayed where it always was, on the Bitcoin ledger. But now the ledger shows publicly that the money was transferred from me to you. Our names aren’t recorded in the ledger – just our Bitcoin addresses, virtual locations which we control.
We didn’t need banks to hold our money, receive instructions, grant permissions, or transfer our funds by updating their private ledgers.
Instead, we just used Bitcoin’s public ledger. We didn’t need banks at all.
Bitcoin is the bank.
Please share to help people understand Bitcoin
Bitcoin is the Bank
(From ‘Bitcoin is’, a series to help people understand Bitcoin)
Say I pay you via the bank: I instruct my bank; my bank grants permission, updates its private ledger and tells your bank; your bank grants permission, and updates its private ledger.
But if I pay you with Bitcoin, there are only two steps: I make an entry in Bitcoin’s public ledger, and the Bitcoin network confirms the transaction. And that’s it. I’ve sent you the money, and the transaction is complete.
Nothing physically moved: the money stayed where it always was, on the Bitcoin ledger. But now the ledger shows publicly that the money was transferred from me to you. Our names aren’t recorded in the ledger – just our Bitcoin addresses, virtual locations which we control.
We didn’t need banks to hold our money, receive instructions, grant permissions, or transfer our funds by updating their private ledgers.
Instead, we just used Bitcoin’s public ledger. We didn’t need banks at all.
Bitcoin is the bank.
Please share to help people understand Bitcoin
Bitcoin is the Bank
(From ‘Bitcoin is’, a series to help people understand Bitcoin)
Say I pay you via the bank: I instruct my bank; my bank grants permission, updates its private ledger and tells your bank; your bank grants permission, and updates its private ledger.
But if I pay you with Bitcoin, there are only two steps: I make an entry in Bitcoin’s public ledger, and the Bitcoin network confirms the transaction. And that’s it. I’ve sent you the money, and the transaction is complete.
Nothing physically moved: the money stayed where it always was, on the Bitcoin ledger. But now the ledger shows publicly that the money was transferred from me to you. Our names aren’t recorded in the ledger – just our Bitcoin addresses, virtual locations which we control.
We didn’t need banks to hold our money, receive instructions, grant permissions, or transfer our funds by updating their private ledgers.
Instead, we just used Bitcoin’s public ledger. We didn’t need banks at all.
Bitcoin is the bank.
Please share to help people understand Bitcoin
Bitcoin is Money
(From ‘Bitcoin is’, a series to help people understand Bitcoin)
Money can be one of two things.
It can be a tangible object: I can pay you by handing you a coin or a banknote which we both agree is money.
But if I send money from my bank account to yours, our banks don’t pass each other coins or banknotes or any other physical objects. So how does the money move?
Well, nothing really moves at all. Our banks simply make entries in their ledgers, and we accept these book entries as money. Most money is this second type: ledger money.
As you may be aware, Bitcoin is a ledger. And just like a bank’s books, Bitcoin is a ledger which people all around the world agree is money.
Bitcoin is money.
Please share this series to help people understand Bitcoin
Further crushing those on lower incomes, UK food “prices rose by 19.2% in the year to March 2023... The annual rate… is the highest seen for over 45 years.”
The UK government’s Office for National Statistics today.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/bulletins/consumerpriceinflation/march2023
Bitcoin is a Book
(From ‘Bitcoin is’, a series to help people understand Bitcoin)
About five thousand years ago, people invented writing to keep track of their dealings with each other. This started on clay tablets, and eventually moved onto paper bound into books. In accounting speak, such books have a technical name – ledgers.
With the advent of money came cash books, or cash ledgers. Just think of them as private diaries for money.
Businesses today still maintain their own proprietary cash books. It may be on a computer rather than paper, but the purpose of a modern multinational’s cash ledger hasn’t changed since the paper cash books of old: to record and keep track of payments, receipts, balances and dates.
What’s this got to do with Bitcoin? Everything. Because even though it’s public rather than private, that’s essentially what Bitcoin is: a cash ledger, or cash book.
Bitcoin is a book.
Please share to help people understand Bitcoin
Between user and user ‘in simpatico’ certainly. But perhaps more ‘antipatico’ so far (because that what drives engagement for the centralised platforms).
Between provider and user mainly antipatico too - the opposite of what was hoped for.
Bitcoin fixes this obviously, as other decentralised things (maybe nostr) may also do.
So I’d say Bowie’s vision has not come to pass, but I’m hopeful it will be realised eventually.
Reminder: Bitcoin is the Bank.
Great stuff. Love all the ‘90s Waits albums. Bone Machine the pick for me. Underrated period.
In the US, the sudden elimination of the two main crypto-friendly banks and the regulatory attacks on exchanges may suggest the exit closers are fully cognizant of their need for speed.
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The first part of this is also worth hunting down if you want to listen to the pro-CBDC arguments of the former CFTC head.
Sounds unlikely. How did you come up with 2.7m?
Snow and Bitcoin? Looks awesome.
soixante-neuf
