Benson's Blog

Several redistributions of wealth have occurred in the past. Random inventions that stood the test of time for centuries such as the Printing press or Automobiles. However, not until the invention of Computers has the world seen so many redistributions occur in a span of 3 decades. Revolutionary software and open communication have changed the way we breathe.

Through the past year, speaking with entrepreneurs and involving myself as deep as learning to code, this has been the perfect start to my journey. Working with some brilliant minds in India to get Bitcoin adoption is at the forefront of our every move. I seldom write opinionated articles, but a lot of thoughts have gathered over the months leading to this piece.

I was 11 years old when a dear friend and mentor introduced me to something horrid called ‘UNIX’. Eccentric and brilliant, may his soul rest in peace. GUI was the bubble around that period of time. Everybody wanted a piece of GUI and having moved from a command prompt to a GUI based interface on my 386, UNIX to me was pure overkill. I do not advocate windows much anymore.

There were companies with odd names for the day being built around Linux/Unix such as Redhat, Suse, Mandriva, and several others who were making Linux prettier and more robust with every Open Source contribution. Few decades in, and Linux is banging on the doors of every windows devotee and successfully converting most of them through a free operating system.

Those companies with funny names became integrators and service Fortune 500 companies across the world today. They stand strong today as Linux continues its journey as one of the most powerful, yet easily shelled operating system.

They have triggered ecosystems in Education, economics, regulatory groups, and every other facet of life, accommodating millions each year.

This is a mere example of redistribution of wealth to create more wealth. Millions of people are employed as consultants in various sectors that require an educated hand to get into the core of their system. The people who employ these consultants invest their money in order to gain more money from people who use their services or products. The educators get paid as well and the authors get to sell new books. All this was enabled through technology and code.

Social media is changing governments and regulations as people become harder to control, but easier to co-operate with.

This is where I want to introduce Bitcoin as the greatest redistribution of wealth of our time. I do believe that it is the trigger to a great change; morphing our current understanding of society, behavior and the principles of trust. It is a trigger that changes the fundamentals of what we used to believe in. In few short years, Bitcoin has changed the lives of millions directly or indirectly.

Nothing has spread as virally apart from social media companies to form a sustainable redistribution mechanism to introduce a whole new industry for generations to survive on.

Bitcoin is open source, the code is out there for anyone to read. Some of the same minds that work with companies like Redhat such as Jeff Garzik are part of the core development team and that adds to Bitcoin’s testament. The ledger book of every transaction sits at your fingertips; also known as the blockchain. This way, you do not need to find out in the newspapers that the bank was lying to you and that a recession was around the corner. There is also no possibility of an email notifying you that you have a receive limit if you are in India. US$ 500 to be specific and I think everyone knows the culprit here.

All these technologies of the past and present have always had early adopters who have gone on to become legends of their phase. And there are a considerable number of users who join the race and reach a fair standing as the bubble swells.

Bitcoin introduces a new breed of entrepreneurs and offers absolute equal opportunity for everyone to earn.

As the world revolves around a need to exchange value for purchases, Bitcoin is a tremendous effort to rid the world of inflation. An effort well appreciated by several early adopters today.

Today’s Bitcoin which at the time of writing is priced valued a little over US$ 65. With all its flaws, Bitcoin can be considered to be impure gold. With each bug fix and value addition, its value grows. And once it has a stable and robust environment supporting it, it will then grow in value due to adoption of its unique qualities and ease of use.

I predict that sometime in our generation, Cryptocurrencies will be the sole means of settling national debt. Globalization will occur, removing borders and boundaries, wars will turn to skirmishes or no war at all. And all this because somebody found a way to enable individuals to create, generate and sustain value through technology.