Bitcoin's success continues to grow. In just twelve years, the digital currency created by Satoshi Nakamoto has managed to reach a market capitalisation of $1 trillion in February 2021. That's kind of amazing considering it took the fastest GAFAM, Google, 21 years to achieve that.
With bitcoin, everything seems to be going very fast.
Bitcoin, however, has one notable difference from GAFAM. Bitcoin's impact on the world of the future will be much greater. Bitcoin is a true monetary revolution whose potential impacts are difficult for many to understand .
A complete paradigm shift like bitcoin is scary. This is something that makes sense. Many are trying to appease themselves by categorizing bitcoin as a store of value, a payment system, a commodity,...
It's useless to waste your time on this because bitcoin is not classified. Bitcoin created its own category. It is a unique system capable of adapting to the diverse needs of all its users .
The opposition to bitcoin is mainly due to the fear that comes from not knowing what bitcoin is
Those who still have difficulty perceiving this are afraid. They fear that they will eventually be overwhelmed by the bitcoin revolution. Instead of embracing it, these people are resisting in an attempt to maintain their unfair privileges within the current monetary and financial system.
So governments, central bankers, economists or some billionaires will falsely attack bitcoin. Some will say that bitcoin is only used by criminals who want to launder money. Others will say that bitcoin is a scam that will end very badly.
Finally, others, like Bill Gates, have criticized bitcoin's power consumption as excessive. Excessive in terms of what? He doesn't specify. Perhaps Bill Gates prefers the current system where the Fed can print more than $4 trillion of anything through simple accounting entries.
The situation with bitcoin is not unique in world history.
Many other major technological disruptions have frightened people in the past. Each time the problem was the same. Faced with a new situation, the powerful people in the place were afraid of losing their advantages. So they fought as much and more.
This always proved futile, as a technological revolution like bitcoin always triumphs when it has the support of the people.
Electricity scared the majority of people in the 19th century
When electricity began to spread in the early 19th century, many people were afraid to use it. Even U.S. President Benjamin Harrison was one of those people afraid of progress. Harrison was constantly telling people working in the White House to turn off the lights.
He was afraid of being electrocuted. Imagine the reaction of the general public when electric bells were first set off. Everyone was afraid of this innovation that seemed dangerous.
Today, electricity is ubiquitous. No one can imagine life without electricity.
The general public was afraid of dying on the first trains, which were moving at 30 miles per hour
The Stockton and Darlington Railway, which opened in England in 1825, was the first railway to use steam locomotives and carry passengers. The phenomenal progress must have thrilled the general public. But no!
Many people were afraid of this invention. The popular belief is that the human body is not designed to travel at the incredible speed of 30 miles per hour. People at the time thought they would fall apart while traveling at that speed.
Today, high-speed rail is widespread throughout the world. And no one suffers from this fear anymore.
The telephone was seen as a tool of the devil
The ability to talk to your family on the other side of the country was made possible by the invention of the telephone. What a great advance when you think about it. However, the telephone was not as welcome as you might imagine today.
Some people were afraid of getting electrocuted when touching a phone.
Men feared that their wives would waste too much time chatting. In Sweden, preachers claimed that the telephone was the devil's tool and that phone lines were conduits for evil spirits.
Today, it seems no one can get through a day without a cell phone.
Things have not changed in modern times
The examples I just gave you are from another era. So you must think that society has managed to evolve and avoid going back the same way in recent times.
Again, it would be a mistake to think so. In 2005. CNN published an article with a title that seems silly today:
"Emails 'hurt more intelligence than pot'"
The article explains that workers distracted by phone calls, emails and text messages suffer a greater loss of IQ than marijuana smokers.
The journalists based themselves on a British scientific study of 1,100 people.
If we had listened to the results of this survey, we would have had to give up emails, phone calls and text messages. In other words, we wouldn't have been able to work during the coronavirus pandemic...
Bitcoin still scares a lot of people, but eventually it will catch most people too
As you can see, all the major technological revolutions in our history have followed the same path as the one bitcoin is taking today. These revolutions scare the majority of the general public. Some forward-thinking people continue to push for their development.
Little by little, the resistance gives way one by one.
Former opponents eventually become adopters of these new technologies. Twenty to thirty years later, everyone has moved on to these new technologies. Several centuries later, everyone has forgotten the initial resistance and concerns.
With bitcoin, the same is happening.
You can see that more and more former opponents of bitcoin are coming to embrace its revolution. This will continue to happen over the next decade and things will continue to accelerate. In 20 to 30 years, when bitcoin surpasses 1 billion users, all will have forgotten the present objections .
Bitcoin's success is only a matter of time. The history of major technological disruptions that have had popular support is there to remind us if needed.