It is safe to say 17 years ago today the world changed when Bitcoin.org was registered, no one would anticipate the coming prevalence of noughts and digits and the trust that would be placed in the network and blockchain that underpins it, transforming access to money forever!
First there was Bitcoin then followed Ethereum and many others, it was the start of a transformative era for crypto which would see a decentralised financial system skyrocket into the mainstream.
What started as a dream and a punt in many respects, quickly showed itself to be much more and eventually after a period of incubation, took the world by storm, showing that even the most innocuous of changes can create ripples that become waves. Change happens when we believe and Bitcoin more than anything is a system of belief, like we believe gold is valuable for its utility and scarcity, we believe Bitcoin holds value for its out of the box scarcity and with the recent all time high of $124,450 and current price of $115,391.84 we can be certain sustained belief can become concrete.
There were early innovators such as Facebook’s Libra which sought to create a global currency that would be a lifeline for highly volatile countries experiencing hyperinflation, you can read more about this in our thought piece here.
What the future may hold for crypto and its prevalence is on the right course, words from 45th and 47th President Donald J. Trump at the White House Crypto Summit
We’re using the blockchain. We’re using Bitcoin. We are going to use digital assets to pound forward, and Donald Trump is leading the way.”
17 years later and Bitcoin.org’s legacy of a decentralised financial system is taking off with stablecoins, a 1:1 fiat reserve cryptocurrency taking centre stage in the race for settlement systems that are cost effective and AI-friendly. We also saw the explosion of the Trump meme coin and the NFT hype, followed by the metaverse. What is clear is that the world changed those 17 years ago and now we are on the cusp of seeing what a decentralised financial system looks like and how this reshapes economies around the world, with governments’ increasingly ready to regulate and put the necessary guard rails in place.