In the present era of the digital world and economy, Bitcoin is practically money. While it might still be a hard sell in the Western world, given that this sector is still in its nascent stage, with high inflation and decreasing US dollar value, Bitcoin can be a great option.
Even when inflation has been at its highest in the past 40 years, it is challenging for the Western world to understand the importance of Bitcoin. Blinded by the 'strength' and dominance of the dollar all these years, we cannot appreciate the utility of Bitcoin.
We now have the real-world use cases of Bitcoin, which are major advancements in fiat currencies worldwide, including the dollar.
Let's look at five cases where Bitcoin could be utilized even in ways the dollar, other fiat currencies, or gold could not.
Over the last decades, and specifically in the past few years, the theme of censorship has been in talk. By de-platforming the sitting president of the United States in January 2021, the tech firms have set a precedent and conveyed that they are the new oligarchs.
The COVID-19 origination theories are now largely accepted by masses across the globe. The belief in this theory had earlier led to the de-platforming of several prominent officeholders, including respected and renowned doctors.
Now, what if your money is censored? We don't need to go far back. Let's take the Canadian Trucker Protest of early 2022 as an example. The Canadian government established the rule that every trucker to enter the country should be vaccinated.
With their human rights being infringed, the truckers decided to call protests to get rid of the vaccine mandates and vaccine passports in Canada during the ongoing COVID-19. Several vehicles formed convoys from different points and closed Ottawa, the capital city, by blocking the streets.
With one thing leading to the other, things escalated, and before you knew it, the Canadian banking system started to block the money of every person even remotely involved with the protests.
Everyone was taken on the hit list, whether the person was a protesting trucker, donating money in support, or handing out food packages. While they still had money in their accounts, they couldn't use it as they were frozen.
Now, it might just be a trucker's protest. But what if someday it was something bigger? What if someday it was a protest against the fundamental rights of all citizens associated with an abusing government of the country?
When it comes to Bitcoin, it doesn't matter who you are, what political alignment you have, what country you belong to, etc. As long as you are playing by the rules of this blockchain system, you can use Bitcoin without being regulated.
This is why many people used Bitcoin as their donation medium, even in this Canadian trucker's case. With around 5,000 donors, they raised more than 21 Bitcoins, which amounted to a total of $1 million then. This was possible because Bitcoin is a censorship-resistant token.
As political parties across the world are leaning further toward extreme mindsets, instances of jurisdictional arbitrage will further increase. Even today, polarization, capital regulation, and capital fighting often occur.
Now, as a citizen of such nations, there would be instances where you would have to flee at the very moment before it gets too late.
The question is, how would you take the entire household and all novelties with you? How would you cross borders when you are carrying wads of cash or gold with you? You can't get across the borders without these valuables being confiscated.
The solution to this lies in Bitcoin again. You can quickly move your Bitcoin, ensuring that no one knows of it and there's no evidence of it happening. For this to go correctly, you must maintain twelve (in some cases 24) words, called 'recovery phrase.'
These are a series of words that your cryptocurrency wallet generates and give you access to the cryptocurrency associated with that wallet. With the help of this recovery phrase (otherwise known as seed phrase), you can bring your wealth anywhere in the world.
We have often heard from people worldwide that mining Bitcoin requires a lot of energy. Some even claim they are diverting the energy that otherwise would have been used for other worthwhile purposes. However, there is a group of experts that explains that this is a misguided conception and is in support of energy consumption by Bitcoin.
Well, these Bitcoin miners, in reality, are the energy consumers of the last resort. This means these miners would harness energy on demand in case of surplus production. This kind of reliability and consistency in our modern energy grid system is quite helpful.
Instead of wasting too many resources on planning for energy demand peaks and troughs, the producers can produce energy without worrying that nobody would use the energy produced. With this, the Bitcoin miners help stabilize entire energy grids.
Additionally, Bitcoin mining encourages using the most efficient energy sources available. It's quite simple to decipher the profit and loss statement of these miners. The major share of the expense comes from the energy consumed while mining Bitcoin, and the revenue includes the Bitcoin that you mine.
You'd want to increase your revenue and decrease expenses to increase your profits. So apart from mining Bitcoins, you also have to find a way to cut down on expenses. You would require the cheapest and most efficient energy sources for this. The sources for cheap energy would be natural and renewable sources of energy, that is, solar energy, hydro, wind, etc.
Bitcoin miners and businesses are contributing to innovations and developments in the field of green energy and wasted energy. They ensure that as best as possible, they mine Bitcoin with the energy that otherwise would have been wasted. This would be beneficial for both miners and energy producers.
It is estimated that around 60% of the energy produced is lost before it even reaches consumers. The Bitcoin miners here would be more than happy to purchase this energy and prevent them from being wasted. As a result, while the miners get cheap energy, the energy producers get to sell the energy that otherwise would have produced no revenue
We all know how much of a hassle it is if you require banking services after office hours or on the weekend. With globalization and internet availability, the world has advanced to the point where markets are connected across the globe. We have the facility of on-demand fulfilment of everything. However, regarding the availability of financial services, they haven't been able to keep up with other sectors.
Talk about Bitcoin, and it has an up-time of 99.99%. Over a total of 12 years of its availability, Bitcoin has witnessed a total downtime of merely 14 hours in total. No matter what time of the day it is and in which part of this world you are, you can interact using Bitcoin as long as you have good internet connectivity.
Some people are even working on ways to account for instances where internet connectivity is an issue. One such genius successfully working on such a project is the South African developer Kgothatso Ngako. With Bitcoin as the medium of exchange, we no longer have to worry about the timing, holiday closures, circuit breakers amidst volatile situations, etc.
As years go by, a significant amount of time is spent by people worldwide on consuming digital products and services. The question here arises just because we have to get access to an article on the Wall Street Journal, or Spotify, or Audible, for that matter, why do we have to give away information regarding our credit cards or address?
This method of e-commerce is now being disrupted by Bitcoin and its scaling layers like the Lightening Network via internet-native micropayments. Micropayments are a great alternative to traditional systems and have the potential to support high-quality content- offer value for value.
In due course, it also ensures that the users are not locked into a single, long-term subscription. Micropayments work on the concept of spending a minimal amount for every time you view content or for every minute you spend listening to something.
The fountain is a perfect example of this concept. It is a podcast app on the Lightening Network, directly above the base layer of Bitcoin. To use this app, users can load up a Lightning wallet and stream podcasts for tiny portions of satoshis (sats), which they can transfer directly to the content creator.
The value of these streams can be as low as five sats for every minute. This would amount to $0.00095 when calculated on the day this article was written.
With this feature, content curators can now rely solely on their audience to fund their venture. Several podcasters prefer this idea of aligning their incentives directly with the listeners. This ensures that there is no product shilling, false advertising, and a more engaging experience between the parties and middlemen.
The pesky paywalls form another huge reason why Bitcoins would be a better option. For instance, if we come across a tempting article that we wish to read in the Wall Street Journal. We click on the article and come across a paywall.
99% of the time, we will likely exit the window and forget about the article. The chances of us grabbing our wallet, entering our credentials and credit card information, and signing up for the monthly subscription are quite low.
With the ongoing bear market, some think Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are dead. However, this isn't the first bear market, and after every bearish trend, we have witnessed the sector reach a yet new high.
The problem is that many people associated with this world are fixated on the fiat price of Bitcoin. They remain unaware that even today, Bitcoin works just the way the developers advertised. It's a reliable mode of exchange, open to everyone, and with no regulators. Everyone playing by the rules can access their money whenever and wherever they want.