Is bitcoin the most important technological achievement of our lifetime?

[BldSwtTrs]

Yes.

I think it's one of the five biggest technological achievement of human history in its consequences (it's on the same level as stuff like agriculture, alphabet, internal combustion engine. Even computers and Internet are outclassed.)

[kkaspar]

Jokes aside, bitcoin is a nice step in the evolution of finance, but keep a cool head if you don't want to look like an Jehovah's Witness

Sometimes it's OK to get excited about things.

I'm excited about having the technology to protect and control my money as I see fit!

You may control your bitcoins, but the bitcoin market controls your wealth

[bassclef]

Ron Paul once said, "You can't stop an idea whose time has come." His speech during the 2007 US presidential debate began a mass awakening to the dangers of central banking. He was ahead of his time.

Bitcoin (and its digital currency brethren) are all ideas whose times have come thanks to another guy who was ahead of his time. They are competition to dinosaur banking cartels. They have size, but we have speed, agility and youth. I know which side I'm on.

[CrashX]

I love Bitcoin, But its  NOT THE MOST  important achievement, and from it.

[kkaspar]

Jokes aside, bitcoin is a nice step in the evolution of finance, but keep a cool head if you don't want to look like an Jehovah's Witness

Sometimes it's OK to get excited about things.

I'm excited about having the technology to protect and control my money as I see fit!

You may control your bitcoins, but the bitcoin market controls your wealth

The former will ensure the success of the latter.

The faith of the hodlers will decide the amount of your wealth. You could always pray for god/satoshi, that no old adopter/drug dealer/coin thief will decide to dump 100 000+ coins and decrease your wealth by ten times or more
But I agree, it's a matter of taste. It suits some people to act on blind faith while ignoring the risks. Sometimes it pays off also. If it wouldn't be like that, then we wouldn't have any lottery winners

[theonewhowaskazu]

If its not the most objectively important, its certainly the most interesting, at least to me.

[lemfuture]

youre forgetting about internet itself where bitcoin is born and many other things to come. thanks to the power of communication

[DieJohnny]

I thought Gay marriage was the most important achievement for mankind???

BTW, I heard of some parents that are sex-changing their toddler boy into a girl because he wears dresses. So glad they figured out that he was born a girl instead of a boy, amazing progress.

[BitcoinBobbeh]

I think it's one of the five biggest technological achievement of human history in its consequences (it's on the same level as stuff like agriculture, alphabet, internal combustion engine. Even computers and Internet are outclassed.)

Really? You think it outclasses computers and the internet? And the idea of free speech? Maybe space travel? Heart transplants? Machines that BREATHE for people?

Bitcoin is a good thing. However- if you think it's one of the very most important inventions by mankind, you would legitimately be the creep I don't talk to at a party.

[log2exp]

If crowd funding via bitcoins cured cancer, then yes.

[JimboToronto]

Bitcoin itself isn't nearly as important as open-source, cryptography-secured, proof-of-work-based, decentralized, peer-to-peer networking.

Bitcoin's just one implementation of a world-changing disruptive technology with the promise of revolutionizing everything from elections (and democracy in general) to notarizing documents.

It however is merely another step in an evolutionary process that has led us from the vacuum tube and punchcard computers of my youth, through higher-level (than raw machine language) programming languages, inter-computer networking, TCP/IP, the internet, HTML, the WorldWideWeb, centralized P2P, etc, all the way to today's onion routing and cryptographic networking.

I realize I'm older than many here but I'd tend to consider the most important technological achievement of my lifetime to be the development of integrated circuits (or transistors themselves, invented the year I was born), without which all of the advances I listed above wouldn't have been possible. Even all of the wonderful medical advances mentioned in other posts in this thread were made possible by ICs.

TL;DR-

Not BTC, but ICs and the computer technology they led to.

[Ibian]

The internet wins this contest. But it's probably in the top ten.

Edit: Guy above me makes a solid point, so I'll say the third most important invention since the transistor - preceded by the internet which it runs on and the computers that make the net work. All of it powered by electricity of course, which goes beyond the scope of this poll.

[Mythul]

So far Bitcoin is a great technological breakthrough, the biggest of this decade at least.

[Asrael999]

In my lifetime I am afraid both the personal computer and the internet trump bitcoin, as they enable it.

[isov]

I've posted this before to some place here but if you like to marvel about all the things possible, you probably like this web site.
www.futuretimeline.net

[raid_n]

Ron Paul once said, "You can't stop an idea whose time has come." His speech during the 2007 US presidential debate began a mass awakening to the dangers of central banking. He was ahead of his time.

Bitcoin (and its digital currency brethren) are all ideas whose times have come thanks to another guy who was ahead of his time. They are competition to dinosaur banking cartels. They have size, but we have speed, agility and youth. I know which side I'm on.

+1

It is the idea instilled in people that virtual goods can have value and be used as a means of exchange that is of importance.

Many people don't trust bitcoin because "it is not backed by anything" without realizing that pretty much our entire global economy already runs on digital bookkeeping with very little more than reassuring words that that what we use as a means of exchange is actually worth something.

Every auction house in an MMO or in app purchases for digital goods are further strengthening this notion.
Sure, bitcoin as a protocol is very elegant and its security provides stronger trust but that is not at the core as can be clearly seen by many
altcoins that are being used without providing formal proofs that their systems are robust to attacks.

The "internet" is about to be monetized in a big way. What this will mean for everyone is yet to be seen

[ErisDiscordia]

Yes, I have said so before: I consider Bitcoin (or to be precise - the technology of the Blockchain) to be the most important technological invention of the 21st century so far. The only other thing I consider to have a similar potential impact is 3D printing. Programmable wealth/money and programmable matter. There is a pattern here to watch for

[anu]

Medical science saves lives.

The current fiat money system* costs us 50% of our incomes as compared with a system where money is not simultaneously someone else's liability. How about counting all the suicides this causes. But worse, that system is set up to facilitate wars (imagine a war that must be financed from running tax revenues).

If you have ever witnessed the workings of the IMF/World Bank/Asia Development Bank in the 3rd world, you'd be absolutely disgusted about how much evil well intentioned people do there which could not happen without the ability to create SDR from thin air.

I'd say a medical advancement that is as important as Bitcoin would have to be something truly fundamental, like reversing ageing.





* A different fiat money system (greenbacks) may even be worse

[maximum]

stop with all that medical advancement bullshit.

you think the only things that can heal you come from profit oriented companies?

go look up rick simpson oil and there you have your medical science.
no need for big pharma, god gave us everything we need.

[Lloydie]

Bitcoin is second most important after cold fusion. Ok, I can hear the laughing. 

MIT is running a cold fusion lecture for second year running.  National Instruments also have an annual conference on cold fusion. And ELFORSK, the Swedish energy peak research body have issued a statement that they have discovered unexplained large power outputs from ECats.

Cheap, clean energy is the most important technological breakthrough.