The Bitcoin system does not morally judge the exchange between two individuals. It gives back to Man the possibility of regaining power over his private property while choosing to cash part of it against utility if he considers it necessary.
The adoption of the internet (web 1.0), then social networks (web 2.0) has made it possible to connect people from anywhere on Earth. Men have adopted technologies because they are useful to them: correspondence exchanges, information exchanges, live discussions, video chats , commerce etc.
It developed because it was also free. But nothing is free. You pay your access provider to access the network because the latter provides you with the box as well as the maintenance of the network for your communications. You can chat on a social network for free. But for that you signed an "end user license agreement" which is nothing other than a contract between you and the company. The latter would have no interest in investing in huge servers or in development if it did not earn money. It therefore monetizes your surfing habits to then resell them to digital marketing companies to then target advertisements.
This is not immoral.
What shocks the user is the resale of personal data : he must make a choice between utility and privacy.
USEFULNESS OR PRIVACY?
A recent study published in PLOS ONE , shows that on average (on a small sample of users), users would offer to disconnect from Facebook for a year against 1000 dollars. Although anecdotal, this study at least has the merit of highlighting the notion of value.
In Chapter V of Economic Harmonies , Bastiat writes:
"... I have to make two things understand, namely:
1 ° That utility tends to become more and more gratuitous, common, gradually leaving the domain of individual appropriation.
2 ° That value, on the contrary, which alone can be appropriated, the only property constituting de jure and de facto, tends to diminish more and more relative to the utility to which it is attached. "
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We must also remember the concept of antifragility developed by Nassim Taleb:
“Anything that does not stand the test is fragile.
Anything that withstands a great number of tests is solid.
Anything that improves with hardship is anti-fragile. "
However, in the course of short human history, the only one who has proven his anti-fragility is the man himself.
We are therefore in a period of change where Man has two possible paths:
either he continues in the path of fragility by continuing to depreciate his private life for usefulness until he no longer belongs to himself,
or he chooses the path of anti-fragility: he chooses to reveal only what he wants about his private life, in exchange for money whose value is recognized by all network users.
EXCHANGE VALUE WITHOUT DEPRECIATING IT, AND IN A PRIVATE WAY
In 1993 Eric Huges wrote in Le Manifeste Cypherpunk :
“Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age. Privacy is no secret. A private matter is what an individual doesn't want the whole world to know, but a secret matter is what an individual doesn't want anyone to know. Privacy is the power to selectively reveal yourself to the world. "
For this, money is the cornerstone of change: what is the best way to exchange value in a network, without this value being depreciated? Bitcoin is a currency which, on a short scale (10 years), and unlike fiat currencies, has shown its anti-fragility.
These notions were developed by Satoshi Nakamoto in his White Paper which can be quickly summarized as follows:
The exchanges must be structurally pseudo-anonymous . By pseudo anonymous we mean the fact that the wallets are anonymous and encrypted (are not linked to a defined identity, such as cash, and are not stolen unless your private key is stolen, which only you hold, as if your wallet was stolen), but also that the exchanges between these wallets are all traceable so that all network users can verify that there is no cheating.
It should also be avoided that other entities can seize the value by "printing money" and developing a debt system that they control to the detriment of network users. For this, there is a predefined number of shabby bitcoins is 21 million, the currency is not inflationary that is to say that it is of limited quantity just like gold. In addition, monetary exchanges are not possible outside the bitcoin chain. When we start to talk about a side chain , we may fear that a third party is trying to take the exchanges hostage.
What differentiates it from gold is precisely its practicality (you can easily trade in thousandths of bitcoin so scaling is possible for the entire network).
Then the proof of work which is carried out by the famous miners who invest money and compete by solving a mathematical equation whose complexity is variable, to validate all the transactions. The miner who has the most computing power, and therefore who has invested the most, is more likely to validate transactions.
All transactions since the beginning of bitcoin are contained in a transaction timestamp system which is distributed to the various nodes of the system (the famous blockchain , distributed in peer to peer like bittorent for example). You could think of the blockchain as a book of accounts. The miner who has the greatest computing power will be the one who will validate what is called a block (in fact he adds a validated and verified page to the account book). A page, or block , of this account book is added every 10 minutes.
The greed that would make a hacker or a miner try to modify transactions on their behalf and thus steal users is not profitable because all the previous pages of the transactions would have to be changed from the one you want to modify to fake accounts, which would require enormous computing power and therefore an unprofitable investment for the cheater.
The fear of centralizing mining is a fear conveyed by even the best bitcoin advocates. This is a conceptual shift between the centralization of exchanges that currently exists with the large internet nodes of GAFA and the centralization of monetary exchanges by central banks. The miner does not master the currency and he only has the same interest as you that its value be recognized. He doesn't steal from you, he has his interests, you yours. If miners formed a corporation to change the parameters of the chain, trust would be lost and the currency would be devalued, but since the bitcoin system is adaptable, a new fork would appear.
WHO “RISKS HIS SKIN”?
There are many cryptocurrencies: some are real scams.
Others want to be completely anonymous, but have not realized that by deleting transactions in the register to completely anonymize some of them, we inevitably deceive other users who can no longer verify them: the trust drops and the value of these currencies will likely fall.
Others try to socialize the concept like Ethereum which created the proof of stake : it is no longer those who risk their skin by investing in mining even if it means losing everything, but those who have the most of currency that validate transactions. They appropriate the moral value of the exchange. It's a Keynesian view of cryptos. With the risks inherent in Keynesianism (crises, wars, loss of this famous private property so desired).
WHERE IS FRANCE LOCATED?
Where is France located? A pioneer in the blockchain bubble which is ultimately just a registry or in the global economy?
Taxation of crypto exchange to fiat at 30% minimum. Knowing that the VAT is at 20%, a merchant has no interest in exchanging his products in cryptocurrencies.
Validation of the famous stock market security organizations for the exchange between cryptocurrencies, which all the fervent defenders of crypto currencies are proud of: they see it as an additional step towards the adoption of these cryptocurrencies. However, this will inexorably lead to the de-anonymization of transactions and therefore to theft through taxation.
The Bitcoin system removes regulatory power from central monetary authorities, but in no way prevents the existence of a state, laws or thieves.
The Bitcoin system does not morally judge the exchange between two individuals, it is fungible . It just gives back to Man the possibility of regaining power over his private property while choosing to cash part of it for utility if he considers it necessary.