The thing about Bitcoin that no one ever talks about

Tuesday, September 29th, 2020

I work with numbers. What I do isn't sexy, but it's necessary, and it's necessary because people can make mistakes, whether they're intentional or unintentional. Part of my job entails following the money and showing people where it came from, and where it went, and how it's all being properly reported according to the terms of this deal or that deal. I prove where money was spent with invoices, and contracts, and various accounts on a general ledger. I prove we earned what we said we did with yet more agreements and third party financial statements. Since it's all centrally controlled, it's really the only way to prove the company is telling the truth, by doing a lot of work in the form of tedious reconciliations and procuring the right documentation. But I think about what if it could all be out in the open, made publicly available for those who have a right to know, and in such a way that the numbers can be more easily trusted? All revenues and expenses accounted for right there on the blockchain with an easy way to verify where the money came from and where it went. Wouldn't that be something? This transaction went to company X to pay for this service, and that transaction was to pay for Y for that service. But of course only when you want to be transparent. When you want to prove you're being honest. Like if you run a charity and want to demonstrate to our donors where the money was spent, and it'd be a lot harder for trillions of dollars going unaccounted for by the Pentagon.

I know this aspect of Bitcoin has nothing to do with taking down the government, or banking the unbanked, or being money for the world, so it doesn't get talked about much. It's just a public accounting system, but I like to imagine that some amazing changes could happen as a result of being able to better keep each other accountable, of being able to more easily show proof of payment, as well as giving us the ability to have an online reputation system in a way that wasn't before possible.