Why Bitcoin Is Built to Last for Centuries

Bitcoin may be the currency of choice for many, but that doesn’t mean it’s built to last forever – or even beyond the 21st century. It may take some time before bitcoin becomes the de facto currency that everyone uses, but will it still be around in a hundred years? A thousand? Ten thousand? The answer to these questions depends on how bitcoin evolves over time – and what kind of changes developers bring to the currency in the future.

History

The Past is Pivotal to Bitcoin’s Future: When you look at old forms of currency, like shells and beads, they hold no value in today’s marketplace. Over time, these currencies were overtaken by newer ones that offered better efficiency. So how can we be sure that bitcoin will stick around? What makes it different from previous forms of currency?

What Makes it a Store of Value?

Bitcoin is a store of value in two distinct ways. First, there is scarcity: only 21 million bitcoins will ever be mined. And second, there is no counterparty risk: once you’ve received bitcoins, they are yours and not subject to seizure by an intermediary. Both of these characteristics make bitcoin extremely difficult (if not impossible) to replicate as a store of value, which makes it an excellent candidate for digital gold—the classic form of alternative currencies that serves as a hedge against political events or economic uncertainty.

How Is it a Unit of Account?

Bitcoins are divisible into 100 million parts, known as Satoshis. Theoretically, you could spend .00000001 of a bitcoin or 1 satoshi or many hundreds of thousands and so on. You can make tiny purchases with bitcoins without incurring high transaction fees. For example, in 2014 Laszlo Hanyecz purchased two pizzas with 10,000 bitcoins that at one point were worth $3.5 million dollars; he had paid only around $25 in transaction fees.

Why Would Anyone Want it as Legal Tender?

Bitcoin is revolutionary. It offers a digital currency system that’s built on a distributed computer network of peers, which means it has no central authority. This makes it resistant to censorship and hacking attacks because no one person or group can compromise it. Many financial analysts believe in bitcoin’s potential as legal tender; in fact, some predict that by 2023, bitcoin will overtake all other forms of payment systems worldwide and become recognized as one of the most valuable currencies around! How does bitcoin work?

Who Maintains the Network?

The network is maintained by miners, who are incentivized by earning a fraction of bitcoin for every solved block. The larger a miner’s total computing power, or hash rate, the more likely they are to find and solve a new block—and earn their reward. But bitcoin is designed in such a way that no single miner can control what’s going on with any significant amount of hashing power.

Security Measures Are Working

More and more, we’re seeing that cryptocurrency is one of the most secure ways to store your money. In fact, you can’t go wrong if you save your money in bitcoin! What makes it such a secure method of storing your wealth? It all comes down to good security. Here are some ways that bitcoin provides for excellent security measures

Where is Bitcoin Headed?

Though any number of events could knock Bitcoin off its path, we believe it’s built to last as a powerful and secure decentralized network—and here’s why. All technologies go through growing pains as they gain adoption. If you look at how our current financial systems work, you’ll notice that they are full of intermediaries; third parties like banks and credit-card companies handle many of our financial transactions. But does that mean there is no role for these middlemen? Not necessarily.