Throughout history it has been clear that technological and cultural development have never been on par. It would be folly to assume that this time it will be different.
Since the launch of the Bitcoin genesis block on Januari 3, 2009 the world is slowly realizing the vast and disruptive potential of Bitcoin and other blockchains to alter the way we organize society, change the way we live and the way we think. The thing is, it will probably do so in that particular order.
This is already becoming evident in the ongoing discussion between the various Bitcoin forks and which one gets to name itself the original one.
While with cryptocurrencies we laid the first building blocks of money 2.0, we're looking at it from a perspective and mindset we inherited from the BWP (before whitepaper) money 1.0 era. As is the fate of the generations living the period of technological disruption. In a world dominantly governed by democracies, where people have to vote for x, y or z never for all, where supporters are the zealots of one sports team denouncing all the others, where we are continuously conditioned to make yet another “vote for your favorite, winner takes all”-TV show, it's not at all surprising that we extrapolate such behavior and bias to a system where that choice doesn't need to exist.
In the past units had to be clearly differentiated because if we wanted to transact, it had to be simple to allow us to keep track of the value of the transaction. When we let computers calculate the value of the transaction, display it to us in a form we can understand (a base unit), it really doesn't matter what the actual assets that are being transacted in the background are. One can pay in the assets of choice while via various systems the counterparty can receive in the assets they prefer.
This means the units of exchange can be as complex as needs to be, as long as the code responsible for the transaction is capable of correctly calculating the value we wish to transmit.
It's ironic that in a virtual world where the only options/choices are either 1 or 0, we now get the option to have it all. Furthermore, the proof showing us the real Bitcoin is empirically right in front of our noses.
A Bitcoin is the sum of the components that a Bitcoin created during the genesis block with no further transactions would have.
The value of 1 Bitcoin is the total value 1 Bitcoin would have if it was created during the genesis block and had no further transactions.
The differentiation between the components of a Bitcoin and the value of a Bitcoin needs to be made because of dead forks. While you can still create the value composition of a Bitcoin after forks it is not possible to do so for all of the components from discontinued chains.
The one and true Bitcoin is an index, not a component.
Projectzen
11-20-09 AWP (after whitepaper)
Twitter: https://twitter.com/projectzento