People often scratch their heads when approaching Bitcoin for the first time: it seems utterly simple and wickedly complex all at once. It’s just digital money, or a blockchain, or a decentralized currency… However, many writers and thinkers have done an exceptional job explaining the workings of Bitcoin and how it could change the world.
The following are four must-read pieces on the history and impact of Bitcoin – a historic feat in the fields of computer science, economics, and human behavior. I recommend you start where Bitcoin started – with the whitepaper.
The best part about Bitcoin is you don’t need to fully understand it to use it to your advantage. Bitcoin is simply a way to save your hard work and spend it later – it is the ideal money. I explain this in my own piece on Bitcoin.
1. The Bitcoin Whitepaper by Satoshi Nakamoto
This is the piece to read if you are interested in learning more about Bitcoin. The whitepaper is a simple, 8 page summary of what the Bitcoin protocol and system sets out to accomplish. It focuses on the problems of electronic payments and the novel ways the Bitcoin protocol combines past work in cryptography and computer science to overcome them.
The whitepaper is surprisingly understandable even for non-technical readers, showing the writer’s talent in not only creating the system but being able to break it down simply.
2. The Bullish Case for Bitcoin
A long and satisfying piece, the author Vijay Boyapati walks through the basics of Bitcoin and puts it in the context of the origin and evolution of money – from collectibles to stores of value, mediums of exchange, and units of account. He also compares Bitcoin to gold and fiat currencies on the properties of money, which correlate well over time with what makes for a good form of money.
Vijay goes on to explain how Bitcoin’s history so far fits in to the story of the evolution of money, and how common claims against Bitcoin miss the mark because they fail to understand how money develops. Bitcoin is a bubble – but this is not a problem, since all money is a bubble. Bitcoin is also not too volatile – it is simply growing over time, becoming less volatile over the years.
3. Bitcoin Fixes This
If you spend more than 15 minutes on #BitcoinTwitter, you’re bound to see the phrase “Bitcoin fixes this”. While it seems broadly applied, writer and investor Parker Lewis shows how the statement is often correct because of the pervasive nature of the problem it solves: centralized control of the money supply.
Parker describes how Bitcoin serves as a counterpoint to the relentless quantitative easing and “free money” schemes of central banks, like interest rate manipulation and ‘helicopter money‘. Bitcoin’s ‘quantitative hardening‘ makes it a viable off-ramp to the fiat currency system of dollars, euros, yen and the like.
4. Dear Family, Dear Friends – A letter to all of you who still have no bitcoin
A clear and approachable letter explaining the problems in our world that are crying out for a solution, and why Bitcoin is a great match to fix them. The author also goes through several common objections one-by-one, such as:
- Bitcoin is too expensive
- Bitcoin is old technology
- Bitcoin is too complicated
- Bitcoin is risky and speculative
- Bitcoin will be replaced by another coin
There you have it, my top 4 recommendations for pieces to read on Bitcoin. There are many other helpful resources to better understand the problems Bitcoin solves, how it can help you, and how the protocol works. Bitcoin supporters around the globe have put together several superb lists you should check out if you want to learn more: