Is Bitcoin the 'new-species' of money designed to rein in state control on finance?
In comparison to the previous year, 2020 has been quite an eventful year. While at the start of the year most observers in the cryptocurrency ecosystem anticipated just Bitcoin’s halving event. However, with less than 30 days to go before the halving, the recent price crash and uncertainty surrounding most economies in the world have once again ignited debates surrounding Bitcoin.
Dan Held, Director of Business Development for Kraken Digital, in a recent episode of the Chain Reaction podcast pointed out how Bitcoin revolutionized the world of finance and the implications of the growing global uncertainty on digital assets like Bitcoin. Held noted how Bitcoin’s inception was during an earlier financial crisis and that it incorporated many of the lessons learned. He added,
“Bitcoin was a special purpose-built to be a gold 2.0 sort of asset. And Satoshi planted Bitcoin, he created this new species of money, this new gold 2.0 and he planted it in the middle of the last financial crisis. And if we look at like the only message you’ve ever etched into the blockchain, it’s a slap to the face against central banks and the banking system.”
Bitcoin’s emergence and growth in the past decade represents a radical disruption in an ecosystem dominated by governments and central banks. Held went on to add that, “Blockchain was special-purpose-built to build Bitcoin to make it this state-level resistant money to overthrow government’s control over money.”
Highlighting Bitcoin’s performance as the markets crashed last month, Held noted that in comparison to other assets Bitcoin survived the crash, he pointed out that,
“However, Bitcoin survived, it didn’t go to zero. In fact, I think it did quite well, considering that this is a once in a hundred years sort of event. If we look at the volatility of the S& P, we haven’t seen this level of volatility since 1929.”
Bitcoin too did exhibit heightened levels of volatility since March 12 and it’s only in the last 24 hours that the volatility index saw a drop.
Commenting on Bitcoin’s future, Held noted that with increased adoption there bound to be growth for Bitcoin in terms of regulations and security, he optimistically highlighted,
“The more and more people that own Bitcoin will, I think, will reduce the possibility that governments attack it… And there’s more and more, individuals within their citizenry that own it.”
OhNoCrypto
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Jude Lopez, Khareem Sudlow