You've probably heard a lot about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in the media - people turning into millionaires overnight, discovering coins on lost hard drives and taking out mortgages to gamble on the market. And it's true, you can get rich using cryptocurrency, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's lot more to it than financial security - this technology is set to change society the world over, very similar to the way the Internet has changed our lives over the last 20 years.
It's a truly transformative technology and I'd like to tell you all about it - Welcome to Cryptonomics.
Who I am
My name is Kurt Robinson. You might have seen my personal blog here on Steemit - @churdtzu, or my other podcast and YouTube channel @paradise-paradox. Maybe you saw me interviewed on Anarchast with @jeffberwick, or saw me perform at Anarchapulco, or my breakdown on why Dash might gain mass adoption before Bitcoin
I've been researching Bitcoin since 2011, bought my first bitcoin at $10 even though I didn't really know what it was or have any idea that the price might increase.
Now, after years of research, analysis, and practical experience, my friends see me as an expert on crypto assets, and I strive to live up to that reputation.
Why care about cryptocurrency?
Being on Steemit, you probably already have your own answer to this question, but the wider implications aren't always obvious.
Money. Imagine you bought $10 worth of Facebook at the same time Peter Thiel bought 10% of the company for $500,000. How much would that have been worth at IPO? You might guess that it would be worth a few thousand dollars. Actually, it would have been worth $913,000. Until recently, these kinds of gains were reserved for qualified investors - millionaires. Now with initial coin offerings and other forms of fundraising, regular people have the opportunity to access those disproportionate gains.
Disruptive social change. We can already see on Steemit how crypto can disrupt social media. The highest goals are much more ambitious - disrupt the commercial banks, central banks, and end war. Using this technology, we might be able to reduce power given to these institutions, removing the power of governments to print money, limiting wars to ones that the people agree to pay for.
The fear. It's not necessarily all rosy when it comes to crypto assets. Having a big ledger where all your information can be accessed in one place presents a threat to our privacy. Can we stay secure and private in the epoch of DLT and blockchain? That's a vital question, one which many crypto fanboys and girls don't ask often enough.
What is Cryptonomics?
Certain points that deserve emphasis are lacking in cryptocurrency media, three ambitious ideals which I hope to fulfill:
Responsibility. Personal finance is something that's not taught in schools, and it does require a lot of self-control to get right. By revealing the habits of people who had the wherewithall to hold onto their bitcoins, we can see how to improve ourselves.
Spirituality. You might have been told that spirit and money don't mix, that to be wealthy in spirit, you must renounce material things. That's not true. The lessons of money are the same lessons of life, the same lessons of happiness.
Beauty. The classics of Chinese literature such as the Tao Te Ching and I Ching stay in the hearts of many today, because they at once had the goals of teaching and inspiring. One way to create great art is to combine form and function. In fact, form and function are hard to separate, because the way things appeal to us is a key part of how we use them.
Not one of these ideals alone is easy to attain, so my commitment is to continuous improvement on each of them.
The introduction video
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