Bitcoin (BTC) Has Pulled Back in Price but Outgained Every Other Project in Other Areas

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*Below is an small excerpt from a monthly podcast between 7Investing and CryptoEQ*

Steve Symington, 7Investing: "We’ve heard the cases of individuals who are embracing crypto amid government unrest, right? And we heard of some really, really interesting cases of people who were involved with cryptocurrencies in Afghanistan. And those people who, when nobody else could actually get money out of their banks, because they were closed and literally ran out of money, they were the people who were using their crypto portfolios to survive through that whole scenario.” 

Because the entire crypto market has been on an incredible bull run since March 2020, where 1,000% gains are not unheard of, it’s easy to forget just how truly important decentralized cryptocurrencies like are for the 2+ billion people living in unstable conditions. Seeing your portfolio go up in fiat terms is nice but taking a step back to really take into perspective what Bitcoin has accomplished thus far (and where it's going) is even more jaw-dropping.

Whether it’s an oppressive dictator, near-total financial collapse—like in the cases of Venezuela and Lebanon, or a war zone environment like Afghanistan, Bitcoin gives many a financial alternative where before there was previously none.

Below are just a few properties of Bitcoin and a reminder of why this technology is so important and goes beyond profits and pumps.

• Decentralized: There is no central entity that could censor transactions, charge fees, alter the existing rules, or be attacked or extorted by governments or malicious entities. There is no Federal Reserve of Bitcoin to manipulate the money supply. There is no board of directors that can increase fees. There is no CEO to sue. Bitcoin is P2P and open-source software, like BitTorrent.
• Censorship-resistant: No one can dictate what you choose to do with your money. Bitcoin is apolitical. If you want to conduct a transaction and have paid the small miner’s fee, the network will process it. 
• Immutable (or irreversible): This is critical to any system in which value is being transferred. Users want to be certain that when they send $10, that transaction will be processed, their recipient will receive that money, and that the transaction can never be reversed in the future by someone in power. Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s cryptography (public-private key system) guarantees that only the owner of a certain “key” can send the funds associated with that address, ensuring sufficient funds in the transaction and security that no one else can spend your bitcoins.
• Impossible to counterfeit/digital scarcity: This is the monumental breakthrough afforded by Bitcoin’s Proof of Work model that has created for the first time digital scarcity. Before Bitcoin, everything on the internet (pictures, files, documents, etc.) could be duplicated at no cost. If you received a picture and then sent it to a friend, you didn’t send the actual picture, but rather you just sent them a copy of the original. You still had a version of the picture in your possession. Due to this reason, the concept of digital money didn’t work without a central middleman—luckily, Bitcoin solved this dilemma known as the “Double-spend problem
• Permissionless/anyone may use bitcoin: Anyone can exchange Bitcoin with anyone, anywhere, and anytime. The Bitcoin protocol, for the first time in history, allows users to send money like we currently send packets of data (emails, web links, pictures, etc.). It’s the digital equivalent of having the ability to hand $5 directly to your friend in Europe or anywhere else. No middlemen. No hidden fees for processing the transaction. No exchange rates. No company harvesting your transactions in order to sell that information to advertisers. Most of us are forced to transact and save in a particular currency based on where we were born or now live. For many, this is a terrible deal through absolutely no fault of their own and is based on the government regime they live in. Imagine if the people of Venezuela, Turkey, or Zimbabwe had a choice in their day-to-day currency. Would they use those currencies or something else? Bitcoin at least gives them a choice.
• Pseudonymous/”incognito” - Bitcoin is not totally anonymous as many believe. In fact, as previously explained, Bitcoin’s blockchain LEDGER makes all transactions public to anyone. However, Bitcoin accounts and their transactions are not directly linked to any personally identifying information like a social security number or house address. Each user has a Bitcoin wallet with a wallet address containing a long string of letters and numbers. While this provides some level of privacy, in many cases, it is possible to trace the wallet address back to a real individual and bank account based on user activity or if an exchange’s data is hacked.
• : No one country owns Bitcoin and it isn’t limited by the physical borders of any country.

The emergence of Bitcoin in 2009 marked a true seismic shift in the evolution of money and how humans coordinate globally. Over the last decade, we got to witness the invention of a 21st-century monetary good and the subsequent adoption by the free market, servicing millions of people worldwide. It has torn down the arbitrary borders between countries and for the first time has enabled financial inclusion for all in a truly open and permissionless global monetary system. People are free to transact trustlessly, free from intermediaries at the speed of information with a greater degree of privacy. The sheer existence of Bitcoin forces governments and countries to practice more responsible fiscal policy because, for the first time ever, their citizens have an alternative if they so choose. They are no longer forced to use corruptive, highly inflationary, or inferior money solely because of where they were born. Everyday Bitcoin survives further proves its value as a trustless, censorship-resistant, fixed-supply SoV alternative and a hedge against a history of failed fiat monies.

So, where have we come since 2009? 

• From no price (because there was no market) to ~$60,000+ per bitcoin
• $1 trillion in stored wealth ranking it in the top ~20 currencies globally
• $7 trillion of money transferred since 2009
• 1 million unique addresses, nearing all-time-highs
• The world’s largest network of computers creating the most globally-secure financial settlement layer history has ever known
• From geeky email lists to NASDAQ symbols and being discussed in U.S. Senate 
• best performing asset over the last 12 years (even when accounting for risk and volatility), open to any and all, not just accredited investors 
• Recognized legal currency in the country of El Salvador
• Public companies like Tesla, Square, Microstrategy, and others have added BTC to their treasury reserves

Source: CoinGecko