What makes Bitcoin a revolutionary technology

[rebel24]

I have been thinking about this today. While bitcoin and digital currency does a lot of things, like, no fees for transactions, etc, one of the biggest, if not the biggest things it does is, in my opinion is:

no one has the ability of freezing accounts (no institution controlling them at large-- it's like cash or gold- but very easy to send long distances immediately (which previous cash or gold could not do)
   -This is a major part of it I believe, bigger than the no fees part, prob 100x as important if not more
     -it allows for a level of anonymity too, which may be more implemented in future currencies

thats basically it.

You can send long money distances (we had this before), but now, its 1) immediate and 2) unable to be controlled by a larger institution

thats huge....


------
But I want to hear your guys' feedback, am I missing anything else that is extremely revolutionary and powerful in what it does?

Let's hear your feedback

[jonald_fyookball]

The major breakthrough is solving the double spend problem while remaining decentralized.  Before bitcoin, no one could figure out how to do this.  By using the public ledger blockchain and mining rewards, Satoshi created a breakthrough.  

[DannyHamilton]

The major breakthrough is solving the double spend problem while remaining decentralized.  Before bitcoin, no one could figure out how to do this.  By using the public ledger blockchain and mining rewards, Satoshi created a breakthrough.  

Exactly.  The concept of a decentralized distributed consensus with intrinsic financial incentives is quite revolutionary.

The fact that this allows you to essentially create a backup of your money, and protect your money with encryption is also rather significant.

[shawshankinmate37927]

But I want to hear your guys' feedback, am I missing anything else that is extremely revolutionary and powerful in what it does?

Let's hear your feedback

Bitcoin also takes control of money away from central banks and government bureaucrats (assuming you adequately secure and maintain control of your private keys).  Of course, the ability to control money is the foundation of their power.  As more and more people in society choose to transact and save in currency that bankers and politicians can't create or confiscate, their power erodes.

[OROBTC]

...

Arguably (and for me the this argument makes a lot of sense), Bitcoin technology is most revolutionary in that you can take it with you, without detection.

Out of the country even...

 

[TaunSew]

I think Gold and Precious metals are worthless in a bugout scenario.   A million dollars in gold weighs 25 KG / 55 Pounds and is difficult to conceal.   Never mind there is all the paper work proving you own some, so criminals or government officials with access to that information will be making a beeline to your residence.


We know from throughout history that refugees who had gold or precious metals on their possession had said valuables taken from them by patrolling militias or scrupulous border guards from other countries.  It's supposedly no different today - there's testimony from Syrian and African refugees that they've been robbed by Middle Eastern and European immigration officials / soldiers / mafia.

It's a choice between being a refugee with nothing more than the clothes on your back versus a refugee with Bitcoin (with the wallet on cloud or somewhere on the internet), I would prefer being the latter.

China has a population over a billion and a normal riot over there makes Occupy Wallstreet look like a picnic.  A lot of people fear revolution (revolution brought chaos in the FSU) or counter-revolution (from the hardliners who hate capitalism), hence why the Chinese have been buying BTC.

[hilariousandco]

I'd say there are a few revolutionary ideas with it but the biggest is it being decentralised.

[Brangdon]

While bitcoin and digital currency does a lot of things, like, no fees for transactions, etc,

Bitcoin does has fees for transactions. Currently they are negligible, but only for high currency value transactions, and only because miners are subsidised by inflation. If you want to spend under a dollar in BTC, you will probably need to pay a fee which will be quite a high proportion of that dollar.

no one has the ability of freezing accounts (no institution controlling them at large

Yep. That's an important consequence of it being distributed. Another consequence is that the rate of creating of new money is fixed, so no-one can devalue the currency by printing more money.

A third, related consequence is that Bitcoin enables "permissionless innovation". Anyone can build a new service on top of the block-chain, rather like how the WWW is built on top of TCP/IP. That's why the Bitcoin protocol is sometimes compared to the internet. In the long run permissionless innovation may be the most important thing. The block-chain is about tracking ownership, and currency may merely be its first application.

[Avicenna1]

How about.. Storage of value that doesn't take up any space 

You can have hundreds billions dollars worth of asset with you at all time. How about that? 

[LiteCoinGuy]

I have been thinking about this today. While bitcoin and digital currency does a lot of things, like, no fees for transactions, etc, one of the biggest, if not the biggest things it does is, in my opinion is:

no one has the ability of freezing accounts (no institution controlling them at large-- it's like cash or gold- but very easy to send long distances immediately (which previous cash or gold could not do)
   -This is a major part of it I believe, bigger than the no fees part, prob 100x as important if not more
     -it allows for a level of anonymity too, which may be more implemented in future currencies

thats basically it.

You can send long money distances (we had this before), but now, its 1) immediate and 2) unable to be controlled by a larger institution

thats huge....


------
But I want to hear your guys' feedback, am I missing anything else that is extremely revolutionary and powerful in what it does?

Let's hear your feedback

yeah, you understand it