Where will Bitcoin be ten years from now?
Will Bitcoin be many times more valuable by 2028?
Or will it be mostly dead?
Will it be replaced by the more advanced cryptocurrencies ?
If so, will those cryptocurrencies have begun to replace most fiat currencies?
Before I can answer these questions about the future, let’s first look back at the past …
When Bitcoin was born ten years ago,
the world was torn by financial crisis.
It was 2008. Major governments had piled up massive debts. Lehman Brothers failed, triggering a chain reaction of even greater failures in the banking system. Governments responded by printing unlimited quantities of money. And Bitcoin was born as Satoshi’s indignant response to the mess they created.
The dream: To create a peer-to-peer system of electronic cash, killing three birds with one stone:
First, Bitcoin would unshackle money from the control of those who created the financial crisis.
Second, it would replace their behind-the-scenes deliberations and manipulations with the first-ever form of money that has a built-in monetary policy.
Third, the monetary policy would be stable, predictable and completely transparent — visible to everyone.
That was the dream. But it has not been the reality.
Bitcoin will more closely resemble a store of
wealth (like gold) than a system of electronic cash.
Here’s what happened …
When Bitcoin creators looked at fiat money, there was little desire to sort out the good from the bad. Instead Bitcoin’s specs were deliberately designed to be the exact antithesis of every critical aspect of existing monetary policy. Specifically …
Fiat money supply is unlimited and forever expandable. Bitcoin’s money supply is strictly capped and immutable.
Access to fiat digital money is dictated by banks. Bitcoin is free for everyone and anyone to use as they see fit.
The fiat money system is made up of multiple gatekeepers and asset custodians that have to be regulated by a central government and trusted by the people. Bitcoin’s code stipulates that there are no gatekeepers, custodians, regulators or governments in the mix. In fact, there’s supposed to be no authority whatsoever.
That was the theory. But in practice, these design choices have taken a heavy toll on the Bitcoin network over time:Since Bitcoin is scarce, most people are usually reluctant to spend it. Instead, they simply hoard it in the expectation that, with time, its value will always go up.
Since there is no formal authority, there has emerged an oligopoly of miners who control the minting of most new Bitcoins.
And since Bitcoin lacks adequate governance rules to select custodians, certain groups of developers have seized control over most of the network’s development.
So, with the benefit of hindsight, it’s now evident that Bitcoin was an overreaction to the financial crisis and to the monetary system that allowed the crisis to occur.
