Digitally Curious

CHAPTER 12BITCOIN AND BLOCKCHAIN

One of the ways to get a sense of what exciting up-and-coming technologies there are is as simple as tracking what people are talking about. In Chapter 2, I talked about the Starbucks test and how ChatGPT and AI are all anyone is talking about these days. This chapter is going to look at something from the before-times: Bitcoin and blockchain.

Back in 2017, Bitcoin was all over the papers because it had grown from a thing that “techies” played with, to an important financial instrument that was making people wealthy overnight, with little or no effort. Though AI has since stolen some of its thunder, the technology behind Bitcoin and blockchain still promises to reshape the internet and how we interact with each other online.

When you are operating online, there is a lot of trust involved. When you are trading anything of value, there comes a point where too much trust is a bad idea. This is where some sort of central authority, like a government or bank, comes in and provides security. However, as the internet becomes more decentralised, this becomes less practical.

Bitcoin as a concept was introduced in a 2008 whitepaper entitled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” by an unknown person or group under the pseudonym “Satoshi Nakamoto”.¹ It was intended to be an alternative to the banking system, a “bank buster”, and create a decentralised digital currency that operated without the need for a central authority.

This electronic cash ...