What exactly was the idea behind bitcoin?

[Obi theo]

Bitcoin is really hitting its ATH, as we can all see at this point in time , well I regret it because I don't have any of it , but I have been lost in thought for a while thinking of these ,
Is bitcoin the money for the internet ?

Yes , business are starting to adopt the use of bitcoin as a means of payment , no doubt about that but at the end of the road they turn it into fiat for proper use.

So if that is the case , I don't see a world were bitcoin would be mass adopted
 Firstly , bitcoin is limited in number (21 million) and the world population is higher than that if not twice , so it can't be mass adopted.
  In my opinion satoshi was trying or is trying to bring the world together through an imaginary currency , in that process trying to eradicate some level of poverty,
 eg:
if you invested in bitcoin at an early stage it would have made you twice richer especially in countries where  there fiat price is lower than USD.  Like Nigeria($32k in naira is over 15M) .
 Bitcoin blockchain is free at the moment because everyone is holding theirs to see it next pump , imagine a point where everyone wants to transact , it makes the blockchain accumulated , high miners fees, and  imagine paying for a good with bitcoin and the seller has to wait for hours or days to receive his payment.
 We could say bitcoin is a great investment but i can't see it as a currency for the future .
 Please it is from my own point of view

  

[AGD]

You are using wrong assumptions to back your claim.
Since Bitcoin is divisible there is no limit. Think of a Satoshi as a unit. If this was a problem in the future due to a high btc price we can add some more 0's later.
Also transaction volume limit is no problem thanks to solutions like lightning.

So yes, Bitcoin is the money for the internet

Check the Bitcoin white paper https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf to find out about the idea behind Bitcoin. You're welcome!

[fiulpro]

Hello
Never be sorry for your point or what you think , I do think you have to understand the fact that bitcoins is actually something different for everyone. Bitcoins as a whole only have value depending on the person.
For some people it's a form of investments
For some people it's easy money
For some people it's a currency even though you might think that's absurd but many business have started using bitcoins now
For some people it's a way to make transactions happen internationally.
It is indeed a very different form and I do think only Mr. Satoshi can tell why he invented bitcoins but I do think it was to tackle capitalism and to have something other than fiat and stocks to invest it , something which is free from control of the centralized bodies. I think he wanted people to be more in control, more free if I may say.
Plus I do think that it started out simple but it became a moment after that. Bitcoins have been used by many countries to stand against the oppression of the state and the army. Take the case of venezuela. Bitcoin is itself a way to make your own case out of. You can use it in any way that you want. It's that versatile.
It's not just money trust me.
It's way more than that.

[Fesatmas]

Don't feel like you are missing out on the opportunity to own bitcoins, there is still enough for you to have even if only! 5 of the current supply is left.

yes, bitcoin is internet money, although there are still many who think that bitcoin is digital gold, and a digital asset that can be exchanged for fiat currencies of each country. regardless, everyone has the right to regard bitcoin as anything as long as it is in a positive context.

Regarding the re-creation of bitcoin, if it is out of mining, I am still not sure of Satoshi's consistency, which is his reference that bitcoin was only created once with a fixed amount of 21 million bitcoins. if in the end bitcoin can be mined again, then automatically the price will be cheap again.

[serjent05]

So if that is the case , I don't see a world were bitcoin would be mass adopted
 Firstly , bitcoin is limited in number (21 million) and the world population is higher than that if not twice , so it can't be mass adopted.

It is indeed capped in 21 million BTC but it is divisible into satoshi.  That way it virtually nullifies the concept of scarcity since people can have a fraction of it.

 In my opinion satoshi was trying or is trying to bring the world together through an imaginary currency , in that process trying to eradicate some level of poverty, 
eg:
if you invested in bitcoin at an early stage it would have made you twice richer especially in countries where  there fiat price is lower than USD.  Like Nigeria($32k in naira is over 15M) .
 Bitcoin blockchain is free at the moment because everyone is holding theirs to see it next pump , imagine a point where everyone wants to transact , it makes the blockchain accumulated , high miners fees, and  imagine paying for a good with bitcoin and the seller has to wait for hours or days to receive his payment.
 We could say bitcoin is a great investment but i can't see it as a currency for the future .
 Please it is from my own point of view
 

I don't believe that bitcoin is created to eradicate poverty even in some level of it because its access from the beginning until now is kinda limited to those who have internet, gadgets, and devices.  I think it is some way of disagreeing against the central institution especially the financial institution where they just create money out of thin air that causes inflation and devaluation of fiat.

[Upgrade00]

[It is indeed capped in 21 million BTC but it is divisible into satoshi.  That way it virtually nullifies the concept of scarcity since people can have a fraction of it.

Divisibility doesn't nulify the concept of scarcity, neither does it nulify the limited supply. There is a fixed amount of Bitcoin and that would never be increased; if you were to buy X amount of Bitcoin, 1000BTC for example, that's approximately ~0.005 of the total supply, and regardless of how divisible Bitcoin is, that percentage would always hold.
What divisibility does is reduce the barrier of entry and as such anyone can buy in, with any capital.

Yes , business are starting to adopt the use of bitcoin as a means of payment , no doubt about that but at the end of the road they turn it into fiat for proper use.

You're discussing the second layer of transaction, those who bought from the merchant utilized it properly in the sense of the word. What an outlet does with your fiat after you pay is not really much of your business.
As mentioned, there are also second layer payment platforms like LN which facilitates transactions.

[OpenCryptoSystem]

Bitcoin is really hitting its ATH, as we can all see at this point in time , well I regret it because I don't have any of it , but I have been lost in thought for a while thinking of these ,
Is bitcoin the money for the internet ?

Yes , business are starting to adopt the use of bitcoin as a means of payment , no doubt about that but at the end of the road they turn it into fiat for proper use.

So if that is the case , I don't see a world were bitcoin would be mass adopted
 Firstly , bitcoin is limited in number (21 million) and the world population is higher than that if not twice , so it can't be mass adopted.
  In my opinion satoshi was trying or is trying to bring the world together through an imaginary currency , in that process trying to eradicate some level of poverty,
 eg:
if you invested in bitcoin at an early stage it would have made you twice richer especially in countries where  there fiat price is lower than USD.  Like Nigeria($32k in naira is over 15M) .
 Bitcoin blockchain is free at the moment because everyone is holding theirs to see it next pump , imagine a point where everyone wants to transact , it makes the blockchain accumulated , high miners fees, and  imagine paying for a good with bitcoin and the seller has to wait for hours or days to receive his payment.
 We could say bitcoin is a great investment but i can't see it as a currency for the future .
 Please it is from my own point of view

  

Bitcoin and ethereum was for wealth transfer in to blockchain.
Fiat stock all will be gone and new will be crypto
But for this will be used bitcoin and ethereum .

Now everybody knows the bitcoin was created by someone very powerful.
Good brain but high fees

[Karartma1]

snipped.

Regrettably, we have read your very words many times already. Please find below the best answer and live with it.

"The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve. We have to trust them with our privacy, trust them not to let identity thieves drain our accounts. Their massive overhead costs make micropayments impossible.

A generation ago, multi-user time-sharing computer systems had a similar problem. Before strong encryption, users had to rely on password protection to secure their files, placing trust in the system administrator to keep their information private. Privacy could always be overridden by the admin based on his judgment call weighing the principle of privacy against other concerns, or at the behest of his superiors. Then strong encryption became available to the masses, and trust was no longer required. Data could be secured in a way that was physically impossible for others to access, no matter for what reason, no matter how good the excuse, no matter what.

It's time we had the same thing for money. With e-currency based on cryptographic proof, without the need to trust a third party middleman, money can be secure and transactions effortless.

One of the fundamental building blocks for such a system is digital signatures. A digital coin contains the public key of its owner. To transfer it, the owner signs the coin together with the public key of the next owner. Anyone can check the signatures to verify the chain of ownership. It works well to secure ownership, but leaves one big problem unsolved: double-spending. Any owner could try to re-spend an already spent coin by signing it again to another owner. The usual solution is for a trusted company with a central database to check for double-spending, but that just gets back to the trust model. In its central position, the company can override the users, and the fees needed to support the company make micropayments impractical.

Bitcoin's solution is to use a peer-to-peer network to check for double-spending. In a nutshell, the network works like a distributed timestamp server, stamping the first transaction to spend a coin. It takes advantage of the nature of information being easy to spread but hard to stifle. For details on how it works, see the design paper at http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf "

http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open-source

[mezzaluna]

Bitcoin is really hitting its ATH, as we can all see at this point in time , well I regret it because I don't have any of it , but I have been lost in thought for a while thinking of these ,
Is bitcoin the money for the internet ?

Yes , business are starting to adopt the use of bitcoin as a means of payment , no doubt about that but at the end of the road they turn it into fiat for proper use.
  

Yes, Bitcoin is somehow created to create a currency within the Internet. At the start, it was already used as a means of payment and I believe Bitcoin successfully reached that goal. Right now Bitcoin can still be used as a mode of payment and its also another form of investment that really involves a lot of time watching its value. Its also another thing that we can just leave and let it grow through time.

[meanwords]

Firstly , bitcoin is limited in number (21 million) and the world population is higher than that if not twice , so it can't be mass adopted.

People can always use Satoshi, as most people do, so anyone who is interested can have a share of Bitcoin. 

Bitcoin blockchain is free at the moment because everyone is holding theirs to see it next pump , imagine a point where everyone wants to transact , it makes the blockchain accumulated , high miners fees, and  imagine paying for a good with bitcoin and the seller has to wait for hours or days to receive his payment.

It's not like development has stopped or anything. In fact, there's going to be a major update on Bitcoin which is the Taproot and Schnorr (though I don't know when). We also have Lightning Network which has the potential to solve transaction speed and fees. As you can see, we'll have the solution in that with time.

[AjithBtc]

Bitcoin was created as an alternate to the traditional economic system where the control is with third party banking network. With the existence and usage of bitcoin this can be overcome, because we control our own funds. Bitcoin getting within the limit is the good with bitcoin. The limited supply helps in overcoming inflation which most of the currencies experience at present due to improper management and printing currencies in excess.

[ranman09]

You are using wrong assumptions to back your claim.
Since Bitcoin is divisible there is no limit. Think of a Satoshi as a unit. If this was a problem in the future due to a high btc price we can add some more 0's later.
Also transaction volume limit is no problem thanks to solutions like lightning.

So yes, Bitcoin is the money for the internet

Check the Bitcoin white paper https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf to find out about the idea behind Bitcoin. You're welcome!

Great comment. Even when 1 bitcoin would be equal to 1 million USD there would still be ways to distribute it and made it usable for smaller transactions. A possible problem would be slow transactions. But as newer technology comes this will be no problem. Another problem would be its user friendly-ness. I myself don't know how to use the lightning network. It's not because I will not understand it. It's the hassle of doing something like that for a 1-time transaction.

[Wexnident]

The cap is indeed 21 million, and it is indeed one of the things that show how the price wouldn't go past the certain limit, but if you were talking about how the limited supply would hinder its usage, Bitcoin itself can be divided infinitely, without affecting the original value. From Bitcoin to Satoshi, and if needed, well, something smaller than that. And honestly enough, most are attracted to Bitcoin since it doesn't require a third party to be trusted to actually transact, and you can be guaranteed that the value and supply of it would stay as it is shown in public. It's a trustless but trusted currency.

[idrisalomagold]

Hello
Never be sorry for your point or what you think , I do think you have to understand the fact that bitcoins is actually something different for everyone. Bitcoins as a whole only have value depending on the person.
For some people it's a form of investments
For some people it's easy money
For some people it's a currency even though you might think that's absurd but many business have started using bitcoins now
For some people it's a way to make transactions happen internationally.
It is indeed a very different form and I do think only Mr. Satoshi can tell why he invented bitcoins but I do think it was to tackle capitalism and to have something other than fiat and stocks to invest it , something which is free from control of the centralized bodies. I think he wanted people to be more in control, more free if I may say.
Plus I do think that it started out simple but it became a moment after that. Bitcoins have been used by many countries to stand against the oppression of the state and the army. Take the case of venezuela. Bitcoin is itself a way to make your own case out of. You can use it in any way that you want. It's that versatile.
It's not just money trust me.
It's way more than that.

Based on a philosophical standpoint bitcoin is what people think about it. @OP makes his point of view and standpoint about what is Bitcoin cause in reality - Bitcoin hasn`t changed yet the perspective and issues underlying fiat problems and its vision (based on whitepaper) being a "peer to peer" payment system. In fact, people with little to no understanding of what is Bitcoin would think this way... Think again, institutions are not meant to control this system - it's for the people, right?

[oliviarobert]

It was all about Satoshi taking power away  from the banks and returning it to the people. Bitcoin to be the first workable form of digital money that could be sent between individuals without the need to involve a trusted third party financial institution.

The goal and main purpose of Satoshi was to eliminate banks and other financial intermediaries from needing to be at the Centre of every financial transaction, and he achieved it with bitcoin.

[sukbir]

yes Bitcoin is limited to 21M but it is divisible into Satoshi.  If there is mass adoption of BTC in future people will have have a fraction of it like 0.00000001. check this out btc unit in image.

[gleisson05]

I think the main idea behind the Bitcoin creation was introducing an alternative form of money, omitting all the known disadvantages of it.
That is why Bitcoin assumes trust, transparency, traceability and involvement of every user in the process.

[pawanjain]

Bitcoin is really hitting its ATH, as we can all see at this point in time , well I regret it because I don't have any of it , but I have been lost in thought for a while thinking of these ,
Is bitcoin the money for the internet ?

Yes , business are starting to adopt the use of bitcoin as a means of payment , no doubt about that but at the end of the road they turn it into fiat for proper use.

So if that is the case , I don't see a world were bitcoin would be mass adopted
 Firstly , bitcoin is limited in number (21 million) and the world population is higher than that if not twice , so it can't be mass adopted.
  In my opinion satoshi was trying or is trying to bring the world together through an imaginary currency , in that process trying to eradicate some level of poverty,
 eg:
if you invested in bitcoin at an early stage it would have made you twice richer especially in countries where  there fiat price is lower than USD.  Like Nigeria($32k in naira is over 15M) .
 Bitcoin blockchain is free at the moment because everyone is holding theirs to see it next pump , imagine a point where everyone wants to transact , it makes the blockchain accumulated , high miners fees, and  imagine paying for a good with bitcoin and the seller has to wait for hours or days to receive his payment.
 We could say bitcoin is a great investment but i can't see it as a currency for the future .
 Please it is from my own point of view

  

Bitcoin is still at an early stage and it has more room for development. Even though at such an early stage bitcoin has gained so much value.
It is now being treated as a multi-valued currency where some people use it as a currency, some use it as an asset and others use it as a store of value.
We can't really blame it though since it is us who use it for different purposes. It is decentralized and nobody controls it which is why it is going in a direction where majority of the people find it valuable to use it as a store of value. Developments are taking place already as the lightning network is starting to gain attention and I think many such developments in future, "might" make it usable as a currency too for majority of the people.

[panganib999]

Since bitcoin was invented by the greatest Satoshi until now it is trusted and decentralize and probably that there's a lot of accomplishments to human life that's why people are willing to support and the development is fast and more benefits seems like a good harvest during this period even the population increase it is a good solution to enhance towards to reduce the financial crisis.

For me the main idea of bitcoin simply just to widening the idea of currency in line with the innovation of technology. Satoshi founded the bitcoin because he saw some progress towards it. And even it is decentralized and unstable, he still go for it and believe that bitcoin will be a thing in the future. The unsure idea of Satoshi makes a lot of innovations and have a good impact in todays market and online cryptocurrency. I think ths simple idea behind bitcoin makes  it more progressive and attain ityet it is not finish and will continually aim for the best for the following years.

[yazher]

Since bitcoin was invented by the greatest Satoshi until now it is trusted and decentralize and probably that there's a lot of accomplishments to human life that's why people are willing to support and the development is fast and more benefits seems like a good harvest during this period even the population increase it is a good solution to enhance towards to reduce the financial crisis.

For me the main idea of bitcoin simply just to widening the idea of currency in line with the innovation of technology. Satoshi founded the bitcoin because he saw some progress towards it. And even it is decentralized and unstable, he still go for it and believe that bitcoin will be a thing in the future. The unsure idea of Satoshi makes a lot of innovations and have a good impact in todays market and online cryptocurrency. I think ths simple idea behind bitcoin makes  it more progressive and attain ityet it is not finish and will continually aim for the best for the following years.

To make it short, the idea behind it is to get away from the banknote manipulation where paper money is controlling the world. With the creation of Bitcoin, we can get back to where we're before when we were using gold and silver. No one can manipulate our economy using those paper money in the other words, we can get away from the power of those people who manipulated the world market. Bitcoin can free us from that because we don't need them anymore when the whole world accepted Bitcoin as one of their own currencies.