Bitcoin Q&A: Will bitcoin become the world’s reserve currency?




Could bitcoin becoming the world’s reserve currency? Will it be more than digital gold? Why did gold not work out as a medium of exchange? Should we desire mainstream adoption if bitcoin becomes a mandated currency, or should we strive for currency choice? The only people who can afford to use surveillance currencies are those with a government that is not corrupt enough yet.

These questions are from the Polish Bitcoin Congress (Polski Kongres Bitcoin) Warsaw, Poland, and the November Patreon session, which took place on May 12th and November 17th, 2018, respectively.

If you want early-access to talks and a chance to participate in the monthly live Q&As with Andreas, become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/aantonop

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Andreas M. Antonopoulos is a technologist and serial entrepreneur who has become one of the most well-known and respected figures in bitcoin.

Follow on Twitter: @aantonop https://twitter.com/aantonop
Website: https://antonopoulos.com/

He is the author of two books: “Mastering Bitcoin,” published by O’Reilly Media and considered the best technical guide to bitcoin; “The Internet of Money,” a book about why bitcoin matters.

Subscribe to the channel to learn more about Bitcoin & open blockchains; click on the red bell to enable notifications about new videos!

MASTERING BITCOIN, 2nd Edition: https://amzn.to/2xcdsY9

Translations of MASTERING BITCOIN: https://bitcoinbook.info/translations-of-mastering-bitcoin/

THE INTERNET OF MONEY, v1: https://amzn.to/2ykmXFs

THE INTERNET OF MONEY, v2: https://amzn.to/2IIG5BJ

Translations of THE INTERNET OF MONEY:
Spanish, ‘Internet del Dinero’ (v1) – https://amzn.to/2yoaTTq
French, ‘L’internet de l’argent’ (v1) – https://www.amazon.fr/Linternet-largent-Andreas-M-Antonopoulos/dp/2856083390
Russian, ‘Интернет денег’ (v1) – https://www.olbuss.ru/catalog/ekonomika-i-biznes/korporativnye-finansy-bankovskoe-delo/internet-deneg
Vietnamese, ‘Internet Của Tiền Tệ’ (v1) – https://alphabooks.vn/khi-tien-len-mang

MASTERING ETHEREUM (Q4): https://amzn.to/2xdxmlK

Music: “Unbounded” by Orfan (https://www.facebook.com/Orfan/)
Outro Graphics: Phneep (http://www.phneep.com/)
Outro Art: Rock Barcellos (http://www.rockincomics.com.br/)

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About the Author: aantonop

26 Comments

  1. All Bitcoin needs is a decent 2nd layer (NOT the lightning network) for it to be a perfectly viable method of payment. The problem which needs to be solved is moving bitcoin off the bitcoin blockchain and "holding" it on this 2nd-layer network where it can be moved around much faster with comparable security, but may be moved back to the bitcoin blockchain if need be. This "back and forth" ability will allow it to retain it's value.

    Bitcoin on this 2nd layer network will still be worth slightly less than bitcoin on the 1st layer, because of fees and the any unknown security issues. But it will be as good as bitcoin. Rest assured, this new 2nd layer will be provably secure, have it's own address format, and popular wallets will seamlessly be able to send bitcoin between it and the base blockchain with 100% freedom. NO PAYMENT CHANNELS NEEDED

     Things wrong with the lightning network:
    1. You need to be online to receive a payment (in my opinion this just makes it useless… even with banks you can receive cash if you're offline)
    2. You need to lock up money in payment channels in order to join the network. This means you can't receive a large amount of bitcoin unless you join sufficiently
    well-funded channels, AKA BANKS

    These 2 flaws are enough to make it 100% useless.

    But mark my words…. a real 2nd layer solution will arise which is not plagued by these crippling deficiencies.

  2. crushed it as usual. Use the best thing at the time for the application you need or are using at the given time. Bitcoin extremists are crazy.

  3. What matters is which coin is the most reliable, fast, secure, private, etc. This will create competition in the form of alternative currencies.

    If Coin A has all these abilities and Coin B has exactly the same abilities, then why use Coin B?
    Well, because it has the same abilities. People are not going to store all of their net worth in one coin because in essence that is not reliable and secure.

  4. In the years to come the world will see the biggest wealth transfer to cryptos, if regulation is coming into place it means that potentially crypto currencies will gain value

  5. Gresham's Law says 'hi'. It's way better to hold onto the bitcoin than to spend it that's why the first wave of merchant adoption failed a few years ago, people didn't want to spend their bitcoin. Hodler's phenomenom is basically Gresham's Law in action. I agree with Andreas' stance that there will be more than one.

  6. Wow. For the first time ever, I find myself disagreeing with Andreas Antonopoulos. O_O

    The idea of one currency by coercion is a thing of the past. The idea of one currency by market choice, however, is actually a very possible future. It's unfair to compare decentralized, immutable, censorship resistant, anti-fragile, sound currency with one's favorite food. If all such currencies were equal in every way except price, maybe I could accept such a comparison. But not all currencies are decentralized (I know of only one that really has no leader), not all are immutable (I know of only one which couldn't be altered, even with some of the wealthiest and most powerful people trying), not all are censorship resistant (I know of only one), not all are anti-fragile (seriously, are there any others besides Bitcoin?), and not all are sound money built on principles of Austrian economics (okay, I do know of a few with this quality, including Bitcoin). The market will decide (and is deciding!) which currency/currencies will be the most prominent, or even the world's monetary standard. And whichever one(s) has all the above qualities, is the most secure, the most convenient to use (just like speaking the same language for information, speaking the same language for value is much more convenient than speaking different languages!), and the most viable economically, will be the one to forever win over all the others.

    But, of course, I could be wrong, and I'm fine with that. Time (and the market) will tell!

  7. Why reinvent the monetary wheel with redoubtable crypto when there is already a perfect system available plus the infrastructure to handle it, such as agricultural produce, more specific, organic wheat ? It's accepted/needed worldwide, it's impossible to forge, it's stable, it's unlimited unlike gold, it's sustainable, it's very hard to steal and you can eat it ! There goes the whole FOREX freeloading scheme too… and we're closer to a workable stable monetary system worldwide, because wheat cultivation does not ruin the Earth as gold digging does.

    That means farmers will become like the Reserve Bank that supply the ~real value money~ to the economy for trading. Why would grains be a superior money ? Because it only lasts maybe seven years in unsealed storage, a characteristic absent in FED promissory notes that outlast farm produce… a highly suspect concept. In a world where all commodities deteriorate with time except fake FED currency !

    Of course we're looking at a wholly different market dynamics once money deteriorates pro rata. But we need to change direction drastically, not only a small course adjustment !

  8. The switching cost between Google search and any other search engine has almost zero cost. And many of them works nearly just as well. Yet Google still hold the top spot by a large margin. Same is true for various softwares… MS Word, etc. Yes there will be more than just ONE, but the question is how important will they be? Will the "matter"? Will they change the world? OK. So they will be like stamp collecting and various other things.

  9. Psssst.. as White Western and East Asian people become more and more of a minority the desire for freedom becomes less and less of a prority. The reason they're bringing in third world people into Europe and the USA, and killing birthrates in East Asia is because low IQ third worlders don't have the intellectual capacity to desire freedom. They're happy consuming and reproducing – making more and more coffee coloured livestock.

  10. It will become the world's reserve digital currency.
    Litecoin, Ethereum, etc. will eventually be priced in Bitcoin, as the dollar fades into the night
    The world will move back to a Gold Standard in the years to come, replacing the USD
    Major transactions in GOld may be stored and verified on Bitcoin's blockchain until Gold gets it's own blockchain

  11. This is the first time that I’ve heard him say something I really disagree with. More value will accumulate on one chain and bring the network effects and security with it.

    We aren’t going back to a barter system of coins. We are going to globally use the best money ever created, bitcoin.

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