Bitcoin at 15: The Enduring Resilience of Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash

In 2008, an eight-page white paper outlined the new form of money. Today we celebrate Bitcoin’s 15th anniversary.

On October 31, 2008, an anonymous entity named Satoshi Nakamoto published a white paper on a decentralized “P2P electronic cash system”.

The Bitcoin white paper was a direct response to the systemic weaknesses revealed by the 2008 financial crisis. With its fixed supply and decentralized nature, it offers a radical alternative to world government-issued currency systems.

1 million drachmas, Greece, 1944

The Problem: The Politicization of Money

The value of government-issued currency comes from the holders’ trust in the institutions that issue and manage the currency, such as central banks.

These institutions benefit from a good reputation for governance. However, the level of trust that citizens have varies over time, and if trust is the primary value determinant of a currency, anything that challenges that trust will tend to have a negative impact on the value of that currency.

500 million dinars, Croatia, 1993

One of the most notable examples in recent years is the Turkish lira, which has plummeted against other global currencies. Mainly due to persistent inflation and pointless policy ideas that keep interest rates close to zero (encouraging aggressive borrowing and spending). lower Prices and a lack of confidence in the Turkish government’s ability to manage its finances have accelerated the lira’s depreciation.

21 million, not calculated

The risk of a trust-based monetary system increases exponentially because governments can print money at will. There are no longer any governments or central banks issuing asset-backed currencies. This made it too easy for government officials to print money to alleviate national crises.

View 10 Pengo, Hungary, 1946

But the problem is that unlimited money printing creates a larger and larger pool of currencies chasing a finite pool of goods. This forces people to pay more for the same product.

10 million Zaire, Zaire, 1992

You won’t see anything new here.

Call failures are not a new phenomenon. History is full of government-issued currency printed until it loses all its value. For centuries around the world, money printing has been the de facto government solution in times of war, financial stress, or social upheaval. And as the value of a country’s currency is permanently diluted as more currency enters the market, trust in the currency is further eroded.

50 billion dinars, Yugoslavia, 1993

In the early 20th century, Germany’s gold-standard currency, the mark, was one of the most powerful currencies in the world. After World War I broke out, the government abolished the gold standard and introduced a new currency called paper marks., To finance the war effort. paper mark The loss of value accelerated after Germany’s defeat in 1918.

German officials did what governments always do as a last resort. That meant printing more money, faster. This led to one of the most dramatic examples of hyperinflation in history. In 1923 it was worth 1 mark before the war. group 1 paper trail.

2 trillion marks, Germany, 1923

This highlights an important truth. Trust is the unstable foundation of a monetary system. Trust can be enduring, but government currencies are systemically vulnerable when they have nothing else to back them up. Printing more currency at scale often prevents an immediate crisis from turning into a short-term disaster, but it also reminds a country’s citizens that their government is creating money out of thin air.

1 million pesos, Argentina, 1992

But you have a choice: Bitcoin.

Bitcoin was specifically designed to address these risks. Bitcoin, a system built on a fixed supply and a transparent, immutable ledger, is structurally designed to ensure that holders do not end up with a currency that can be oblivious to inflation for political reasons.

The supply of Bitcoin is algorithmically limited to 21 million coins. This inherent scarcity maintains purchasing power. This is the same reason gold has maintained its value for thousands of years. The supply of gold is relatively fixed and the main determinant of value is demand. Humanity, created billions of years ago in a cosmic nuclear explosion, is no longer printable.

1 million cents, Peru, 1990

Bitcoin has no central authority. It is protected from the whims of government agencies, individual leaders, and financial institutions. The rules governing Bitcoin are public and apply equally to everyone, regardless of where they live, what they look like, or who they know. Everyone gets the same conditions. It’s money you can trust.

We are all witnessing the future of finance

Bitcoin is a symbol of operational stability, a digital age monetary system tailored to learn from centuries of failure. Since the Genesis Block, Bitcoin has provided a trustworthy, unbrokered, decentralized means of exchange and store of value.

2 million zloty, Poland, 1992

Automation for People: Bitcoin Just Works

Over the past 15 years, Bitcoin has been declared dead 474 times. However, some people get vicious and angry about this and continue to operate and run their code emotionlessly. And every day, more and more citizens of the world are realizing that no amount of doubt or abuse will change this simple fact: Bitcoin just works.

$100 trillion, Zimbabwe, 2008

So as we celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Bitcoin White Paper, it heralds a new era of monetary sovereignty where individuals can control their wealth. At Kraken, we’re proud to help accelerate global adoption so everyone can achieve financial freedom and inclusion.