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Happy Birthday Bitcoin, and Don’t Forget About Cypherpunks - Keiser

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If 2017 has taught us anything, it’s that the price of a commodity has a massive influence on how the world values it.

As Bitcoin entered a phenomenal bull run in November, it was almost impossible not to get caught up in the hype of the ever-growing value of the cryptocurrency. The price continued to rise, breaking barrier after barrier with no consideration of naysayers or well-wishers.

But as history will forever tell us, a $20,000 high was the tipping point and Bitcoin and most of the cryptocurrency market endured a heavy price correction in the lead up to Christmas.

Some people made a lot of money while others lost out in the eventual correction. However the financial success of Bitcoin has somewhat taken away from the 40-year journey towards its inception.


Happy birthday Bitcoin

Bitcoin celebrated it’s ninth birthday on Jan. 4 - marking another milestone since the original genesis block was mined in 2009.

Bitcoin’s birth is credited to its creator Satoshi Nakamoto, but the development of Bitcoin goes back as far as the 1970s. The cypherpunk movement deserves as much credit as Satoshi for laying down the foundational development of cryptography.

Speaking on RT’s Keiser Report, show host Max Keiser says people would be wise to research the history of cypherpunks before they invest in Bitcoin:

    “The Satoshi whitepaper describes Bitcoin as system for the transmission of digital cash, which sets most enquiries into this to a skewed path because they’re looking at it in one use case - the payments-use case.”

    “This leads us to ignore the entire history of the entire movement and ignore everything else Bitcoin can possibly do, including obvious references to gold as mentioned in the whitepaper. Store of value has always been key to this thing.”


Privacy birthed Bitcoin

Cryptography was originally developed by governmental agencies and the military in the late 70s before data-encryption technology was released to the public. It wasn’t until the early 1990s that the cypherpunk movement was officially founded by Eric Hughes, Tim May and John Gilmore.

As Keiser points out, the publication of previously classified knowledge and developments in encryption technology had a big impact on the ability of cypherpunks to improve the technology:

    “Getting into how we got to the genesis block. The idea of having private messages sent electronically required advances in technology and at some point, the government’s work in creating encryption released, set out into the wild.”

The term cypherpunk would only be immortalized in the Oxford Dictionary in 2006, but the movement was founded on the notion that cryptography and privacy technology would bring about societal change.

Without those original developers, the encryption technology and protocols would not have been set in place.

Satoshi even credited the work of Dr. Adam Back, creator of anti-spam technology HashCash, as well as b-money creator Wei Dai in the original Bitcoin whitepaper. Keiser said Bitcoin would not exist in its current form without all of this work:

    “Bitcoin was not born in a vacuum, it has 40 years of history to it. It’s evolved through all these different technologies, it’s a unique protocol and like gold, it’s attracting a huge amount of capital.”

    “Genesis is about privacy and the ability to protect that electronically, ending up where we are today. The cypherpunk movement is the genesis movement. No one should buy Bitcoin without studying the cypherpunks.”


Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/happy-birthday-bitcoin-and-dont-forget-about-cypherpunks-keiser

This is actually the first time I got a tour on the history of Bitcoin all the way behind the now-famous Satoshi Nakamoto. As in other type of industry, there will always be pioneers but these pioneers usually built what they got on works of those who were there in the past. Bitcoin is not an exemption into this rule and we have to thank not just Satoshi but also those who contributed a lot on the foundations used by him. Reading this history can enhance more the value of Bitcoin especially now that it is being questioned for what it is and what can it offer into the future. While there are those who shifted ships and now criticizing Bitcoin what they forget is that we are actually in one industry destroying Bitcoin can also mean the destruction of the others. While there will always be competition, it should not be a dog-eat-dog type one. We should be guided by the wisdom set by Satoshi and those who contributed in one form or another before him. Happy 9th cryptoversary to all of us!

I suggest watching Banking with Bitcoin on Netflix which gives you a indepth history of the Bitcoin and how it as evolved through out the time. There have been a lot of regulations by the government bodies and banks to regulate Bitcoins power. But its also sad to see Bitcoin becoming a store of value instead of digital cash. Hope the future will be bright and it sticks to Satoshi's vision. Happy Birthday to Bitcoin and to where it all started!

I know that the concept of bitcoin was not the first because there have been cyrpto's before it and I think that Satoshi tap to that as a inspiration to develop bitcoin itself. However, I'm not aware of the cypherpunks thing, but its a good lessons to history for all of us. Truly amazing how bitcoin journey is, going from 0 to almost touching a record of $20,000 last year. I think we already know its history, its time for us to really take it to the next level. It was endured criticism along its very existence, and up to this time there are still a lot of people who are doubting bitcoin and the blockchain. However, we are looking for another ten years and I'm sure that it could be considered as one of the best technology in the last decade. I also hope that this year will be another break out year for bitcoin because no one can really stop bitcoin and cryptocurrency revolution.

Becoming emotional won't help you. Understanding the system will help.


It's impossible to stick to Satoshi's (i.e. cypherpunk inspired) vision if we sacrifice the regular users power. Unfortunately, that means setting limits: blocksize must be limited so that as many as possible can access the blockchain directly. Limits are important, Bitcoin is self-regulating and regulations imply limits and boundaries. We'll eventually see people using economic (and emotional) arguments to change the 21 million BTC limit. I hope then too, that common sense will prevail.

Please understand the engineering challenges instead of using emotional appeals. Bitcoin can be a better payment technology, but this takes time to design & test. And most crucially, users must educate themselves to understand what blockchains cannot do, as well as what they can. If we are to keep users in charge, with ultimate power over Bitcoin, this is essential.

There is no cypherpunk Bitcoin if the users are not in control, and that means we must understand how we control the system now: we determine what Bitcoin is because we run the network. Any change that stops us running the network means we are not in control of Bitcoin's direction any more.

The real history of Bitcoin is unleashed to me today .  It was quite interesting and surprising to know that the technology was thought of firstly in 1970s and its inception has almost traveled 40 years by now . Bitcoin always comes up with unrevealed facts about it and i don't have an idea that how many more are still to be revealed . Bitcoin by Satoshi Nakamoto will always remain a great invention no matter how long it stays or goes one day . Bitcoin gave birth to new possibilities and turned out to be the inspiration of many other such alternative crypto coins . The word "crypto" was never to famous before bitcoin . Attaining the highest value after years of criticism and support ( which by the way are very contrasting) turned out to be very fruitful to both bitcoin and its users . Long Live Bitcoin !!