Internet has revolutionised our way of living since its inception .. and now with Bitcoin ,a virtual crypto currency ..its going to do unprecedented in human history !!
To show the importance and impact of what Bitcoin is .. it will be much better to draw a parallelism from the things in world which have revolutionised our way of living ..
Wheel
When wheel was invented ,it revolutionised our civilisation from primitive to modern man , which reduced the Distance Gap!
and led to exploration of new places .. with this we have reached to space !!
It has brought people in close proximity and later brought Industrial Revolution !
Internet
Later we saw the entry of internet and computers in our life which revolutionised the way of our communication ..and reduced the Knowledge Gap!.. It further reduced the gap between human and brought them much closer and led to increase in trade ,migration of people and much more inter connected world.. and led to Information Revolution !!
And again such revolution is being brought by Bitcoin
Before that lets familiarize our self with what Bitcoin actually is ?
Bitcoin is a virtual crypto-currency, unlike the Dollar ,Rupee .. which we can touch
crypto-currency have various advantages of being unique,so that they cant be counterfeited and robbed and also the cost of maintaining them is also minimal and also environment and resource friendly !
Bitcoin is one of the most popular virtual currency in circulation at present ,which is said to be proposed by anonymous group /person .The reason of it being most trust worthy is that it is fixed in quantity just like gold and need to be mined likewise but through supercomputers using special software. When a bitcoin is mined ,it gets reflected in the closed system through Block-chain technology ,where everyone can check the number of currencies available at a time in the system,this is the most exciting part as it make everyone the party to this system .. its like everyone owns it and at the same time no one owns it ...this makes counterfeiting impossible as it creates unique code and there are many eyes checking the system ..unlike Govt owned system of Banks and financial system .. what happens in back end ..no one knows ..
All this helps to create a transparent system which we found lacking in fiat currency,where they can be counterfeited in country as well as outside leading to black money , terror financing and threat to economy and society at large.
Also there is no liability of taxes and you own your full money ..no intermediaries .. keeps the value of your money intact ..
Bit-currency is a crypto-currency,for this an algorithmic code needs to be solved,which requires supercomputers and also mining 1 bitcoin consumes 72Kw of power which is very expensive consuming as well as not environment friendly .. so all this is the price behind bitcoin .This limits the people who can be involved in mining it , But secondary trading can be done on Bitcoin exchange like any other commodity/equity in share market.
It sometimes leads to speculations and inflates its price beyond any estimate ,which creates the fear of speculative bubble and if we connect if to past can lead to financial crisis like situation of 2008 ,it will be to early to say this since it is a novice system and no one fully understands the ramifications of it ..world economies ar closely keeping tab on its movements ..
Currently some countries like Japan,.korea have declared to pay salaries of there employees. At the same time some countries like china have thought of banning it and some countries like India are silent about it and have just issued warning against the unpredictability of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is actually not backed by any tangible asset,unlike Dollar,Rupee where they it is the responsibility of Government "I promise to pay the bearer" and also the acceptability of it is not ubiquitous, so one has to convert it to their sovereign currency and get the goods and services ..
What if the this system Crashes ????? Who will bear the responsibility of the loss ...while we have to closely wait and watch!!
Novice technology and novice public makes it even more puzzling ..Not only people in middle towns but many in cities are just trying to park their money in these assets ,who don't even bother to know about the technology and run after easy money .What if they loose heir whole hard earned money ?? There are several cases of fake schemes luring people to invest on the name of bitcoin and many have lost to it even big personalities as well .But not to say that many have made windfall gains from this system as well .. which becomes the bait to attract people towards it .
Another major problem with Bitcoin is with anonymity .The transactions can't be traced .This is that striking feature which attracts people and creates fear for Government.
People are lured because now they don't need to give accountability to any Govt or Bank for any transaction, whole money without any tax is coming to their e-wallet ,doing loss to exchequer in terms of less tax collection. But the repercussions can be grave if we extend it to terror financing,Black marketing ,smuggle etc which is threat to the global economy as anyone sitting anywhere can just send their bitcoin to any part of the world for any task to be done .No traces !!!!
There must be something which has attracted people not only as an investment instrument but also as how such system works,Many Big Giants have also kept quiet to say on this,some say on this,some say one can try investing 10% of their savings No harm !!.
Some says,we are just watching some says ,It shouldn't lead to erosion of somebody's hard-earned money and create menace of corruption.
Well there are lot of voices coming some are even happy about it as it provides them as tax saving instrument,get whole of their money .Even many Big retailers have started to take payment in Bitcoins.
Well virtual currency is going to be the next BIG THING ! It is inevitable .Bitcoin has potential to be the currency of future ,But there is a need for coming together of countries financial experts and academia to decide what should be the future course of action ,as technology is just knocking right at the door .Apart from bitcoin many e-currency like ether etc have features which provides even more anonymity with no efforts of mining.
The technology behind the scene is really praised even by financial institutes and banks . ,There is thought to migrate and upgrade to best practises ,like Block-chain technology .This will create a transparent and accountable financial system which can check corruption,counterfeit and if we go are connecting like this,it may reduce POVERTY GAP? Who knows ?
Human, as we know is never satisfied,which makes him stand apart from creatures .So, its a fact that technology has to come,it is we, who have to learn and adopt otherwise as Darwin has said long back "Nature selects the best ,struggle of the fittest", in this context one should be flexible enough to adopt the the upcoming technology otherwise one can become obsolete.
So,there is need to closely monitor and make people aware in a big scale about the pros and cons of using crypto-currency
Ransonware attack of 2017 ,can be the warning as well as learning point, which should be kept in mind before chalking out any future course of action ,where it hacked systems all over the world asked payment in bitcoins .
So,question whether Bitcoin can be the currency of the future need to be watched closely !!
