Some things change...
I don't understand Bitcoin.
Of course, I understand the math aspect of blockchain technology (I have a PhD in math), but
I absolutely don't understand the social reaction.
I think we are lucky to see a revolution, a revolution in social organization.
What happens when new money appears?
Today we have so many types of money: gold coins, silver coins, copper coins, steel coins, long greens, fiat money, checks, derivatives, stocks, futures, bonds..., and we need more, much more.
Coins were self supplied by metal they were produced from (gold, silver, copper).
Fiat money is supplied by taxes which are guaranteed by the power of the state-controlled army.
When we want to buy something we need the middlemen -- the government, whose power guarantees that our paper money has some value.
The government has a monopoly on military power and a monopoly on fiat money.
Stocks are different
Fiat money has some advantages and disadvantages: cheap production and inflation.
However, the government can guarantee the cost of fiat money only today, not in the future.
Therefore, if we want to form a capital we should not store fiat money.
Stocks solve this problem.
Stocks created a new form of middlemen -- the company.
The power of the company is in the demand for production (current or future).
When a capitalist needs fiat his company pays dividends.
Stock companies are social clusters of reputation and power.
The Internet broke the government monopoly on money
Nowadays everyone can create digital money (usually offshore) and use it globally.
A lot of money appeared (paypal, epassporte, webmoney...).
All of them are in a high-risk zone, they are supplied and totally controlled by their founders that can close their service and open a new one again at any time, if they deem it profitable.
Epassporte died and many people lost their money.
Such digital money are not new middlemen, they are additional middlemen.
Bitcoin changes the World
Who are the middlemen for bitcoin, who guarantees it value?
The middlemen for bitcoin are the society that use bitcoins (cybernetics say a "closed loop system").
Math guarantees permanent rules of emission, trusty transactions, private property...
Society and math form the value of bitcoins without taxes, without armies, without production.
Society, math and blockchains created a new form of social organization -- "Middlesociety".
Middlesociety
Middlesociety is a key to a property of social groups managed by math algorithms.
No humans, we don't need to delegate our will to someone, don't need to trust someone.
Math has no corruption, doesn’t lie, doesn’t need a salary, it is the perfect manager.
Math management
We use heavy, expensive, slow banks for money orders...
Bitcoin: we can join middlesociety and use math management!
We use heavy, expensive, slow commodity exchanges for futures...
We use heavy, expensive, slow casinos for gamble...
Ethereum (smart contracts): we can join middlesociety and use math management!
We use heavy, expensive, slow organizations for domains...
Namecoin: we can join middlesociety and use math management!
We use heavy, expensive, press filled with spam and ads to pay for content...
Steem: we can join middlesociety and use math management!
We need math management everywhere!
I don't understand why people are so slow to use new technologies?
I upvoted You
People are slow because people are not used to fast change. They are used to what they know and easily create habits that they won't let go. As soon as they see examples of betterment it will change.
And then there are the unbanked and there is a huge potential in adopting this new and disruptive technology.
http://mckinseyonsociety.com/half-the-world-is-unbanked/
It is the easy financial inclusion for the unbanked and it's decentralization of this type of money that makes it such a revolution in social organization.
Thanks for this post. It helps us think about e.g. mass adoption. And I think it will just take some more time and then suddenly it's there.