The Formula for Single Global Currency
Bitcoin (BTC) as a Digital Global Currency (Image from thenextweb.com)
Steve Wozniak of Apple concurred with Jack Dorsey of Twitter and Square that BTC would become the single global currency. As announced in early June 2018, their belief is derived from BTC being mathematically determined and boasting pure decentralized feature. The latter means not being owned and managed by a particular company and therefore not having a central authority. The former brings blockchain technology into the equation where the currency is cryptographically “mined” and secured.
For Reasons that are Compelling Enough
The appeal for a single global currency is there especially since the financial crisis in 2008. Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of BTC was very much motivated to create a non-central bank-dependent currency that is secure. This is for immunity against corrupted bankers and politicians that very much fuelled the financial meltdown. The government bailout of failed banks is essentially by printing more money, which will as whole devalue the currency.
Timeline for a Single Global Currency
According to Dorsey, he expects BTC to be the single global currency in 10 years’ time. However, he also believes it can be even sooner than that. There are several reasons behind such school of thoughts with Dorsey. One of the reasons is the current state of fragmented online payments that causes a whole host of inconvenience. This makes the single global currency a solution. He believes that when more and more people adopt the usage of BTC, cost and speed of transactions will improve.
Dorsey is the CEO of Square that provides a user-friendly way of buying and selling BTC on its Cash app (Image from Square, Inc.)
Dorsey had also invested in Lightning Labs, a startup set to develop the necessary technology to make BTC faster and user-friendlier. CEO of Lightning Labs, Elizabeth Stark likened it to being a decentralized checking account for users while BTC is the decentralized savings account. This layer of software above the BTC network aims to remove the slow and expensive stigma off it.
BTC is Pure Digital Gold
Wozniak has owned BTC before and made a good sum before letting go of it. He does not want to suffer the stresses of the up and down swings. When he compares the thousands of cryptocurrencies out there, BTC still remains as the “pure” cryptocurrency. This is because BTC retains all the original features of decentralization without central control. Most business models cannot function that way.
