# Byte, Bit, Bitten

A free form deliberation on digital currency, its effects on contemporary events and how it relates with all things online...

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First we had computers for work, then we had computers for entertainment. Then we used computers for automation and for all sorts of other things they weren’t intended for, like handling digital currency...

Using computers as a medium for digital (aka virtual) currency is not only understandable, for some it may seem it’s inevitable. Was the screw pump invented to dig minerals from other planets? Were plastics created for making action figures? Certainly not, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t suitable for such given tasks. It’s the natural evolution of extending a tool beyond its original purpose, wherever we find a useful utility based on its aptitudes.

Precise, transparent, concurrent calculations is what any sustainable finance system needs and coincidently that’s what computers are good at. Even so, because we can have digital currency it doesn’t mean that we should. The need comes from how our civilization is shaped. Universal currency is necessary in this new interconnected world, and given that the Internet has realized the dream of the “global village” we are in search of a neutral constant that can uphold a system that satisfies the needs and wants of every living person, instantaneously. This role is currently performed by dominant local currencies like the US dollar or the English pound but the baggage of traditional trading will never allow them to be free from biased control and local policies.

Digital currency was born with such principals as being neutral, decentralized, and openly available engraved in its DNA. A decentralized currency adheres to the utmost democratic rights and although the two are not synonymous, a decentralized platform needs to ensure it remains democratic if it will ever serve the people. That means no one privileged group of people should decide for the majority, no authority should apply “what is best”. Owning the responsibility to respect democratic processes is essential, otherwise we could have economic instability that would lead to uncertainty for any digital currency’s future.

A universal currency can only gather the respect of the mainstream if it is mature and reliable, but the general concept of universal commodities is certainly not new and we have traded minerals and other goods for centuries. Digital currency as a type of wealth fits in with elements like gold, that have universal value, little to no degradation and their price is formed by the upper limit of total availability. So, we’re not exactly inventing something totally new, something that requires a learning curve and doesn’t relate with our existing reality. Digital currency is not yet another Esperanto. In fact, investing in a digital currency doesn’t require any additional effort from either the public or the financial institutions. The only real threat against it is the primal fear towards the uncertain, which can’t be addressed with logic and facts.

Historically there have always been two forces that compete against each other. On the one side there’s progressive thought, that embraces the new and accepts change as the natural progression of everything. On the other there’s conservative thought that urges for stability through process and control. These forces have always contradicted themselves, but ultimately bring the balance that benefits humanity. So, even if fear for the uncertain is always present, in the long-term that should help normalize our behavior towards the better course of action.

As the Web is designed to promote any human expression, one can argue that it is the dominant vehicle of progressive thought for our time. As such, it ought to embrace and protect those liberal ideas that may or may not cause disruption in our usual ways and be governed by the same ideals of a democratic, decentralized platform. With that in mind, we can understand how digital currencies and the Web are related in a very fundamental way.

Bearing on the evolution of the Web is the responsibility of assisting digital currency while in its infancy towards its goal to create a universal, uniform financial reality. Conventional thinking can do little to help us in this task as such an attempt has never been performed before. What matters is that what is right is done, instead of trying to see how we can fit everything in our formulaic processes. Having said that, we can be fairly optimistic that things will normalize for the greater good and be certain that, as usual, we will ultimately benefit as a whole from this evolution.