Bitcoin

So, it’s about 11am in the morning of a particular day during the period of the first wave of the Covid-19 Virus Pandemic, and I get this ride request from my Uber driving app to pick up and drop off a passenger in a popular place around Harrisburg – Pennsylvania here in the United States called Lemoyne.

When I arrived, he told me his girlfriend is also coming with him.

“You are taking us to Lemonye”, he said. “Sure, I saw it on the app”, I replied.

“Babe, make sure you lock the back door”, he said as he entered the back sit of my car, a 2018 Nissan Rogue which I bought in the Summer of 2018.

After she finally joined us, we drove off for the destination in Lemonye which took about 15 minutes to get there.

When we arrived, I looked at the place and saw that it was a store that had this bold description on it: “WE BUY GOLD, JEWELRIES AND ROLEX”.

“You have the gold with you?”, he asked his girlfriend.

“Yep”, she replied.

He then told me to wait for them in the parking lot of the store after they highlighted from the vehicle, and then entered the store.

“What a glittering gold they have”, I said in my mind smiling.

About some few minutes later, I saw them coming out of the store towards the car. After they entered the car, he asked me:

“Do you accept tip in cash or should I include it in the app?”

“Whichever one is convenient for you, I don’t mind”, I replied.

He then reached out from a bundle of cash he had on his hand and gave me a $40 tip.

“Oh, thanks so much”, I said.

He told me was going to add a new location in the app where I’ll drop them off which he did.

On our way to the new destination, I learnt through the things I overheard them say that they had a good deal regarding the gold they exchanged for cash.

Can Bitcoin be likened to gold?

Can one exchange it this way for cash without having to go through say, a bank?

That’s the idea behind the Bitcoin.

These days, it is popularly referred to as digital gold. People can sell it to get cash or even use to pay for some items purchased online without having to go through the hassles of any financial institution i.e., bank.

Thus, it is also a form of money since it can be used to pay for a good or service. You can call it a digital money or cryptocurrency, no problem, they both mean the same thing.

So, it was created both for storing value (like gold) and for payment.

Remember all that the passengers I picked and dropped off needed to do was to find someone interested in buying their gold which they did – the store where I drove them to.

That’s how efficient and hassle-free using Bitcoin should be.

For instance, you can use your smartphone and google to find an interested buyer or seller for Bitcoin, and boom, both of you are good to go!

Also, it is exciting to note here that Bitcoin has not only gained popularity among many people, it has also gained credibility as well. Bitcoin is not a fraud, as misunderstood by some people.

Jamie Moy, a Forbes Magazine contributor, has this to say about it: “…Referring to bitcoin as insecure or unsafe is like calling gold insecure or unsafe…”.

This now brings us to a common concern usually associated with any form of money, and that is, double-spending. Double spending here refers to as spending any unit of currency more than once.

So, how is double-spending handled in the case of Bitcoin?

The creator(s) of the Bitcoin idea, still unknow till date, envisaged this problem and recommended a consensus mechanism that will monitor and check every transaction for double-spending.

Today, this mechanism is called Blockchain, which is a database technology that can record transactions between parties involving Bitcoin, storing data in a way that prevents double-spending.

On a final thought, despite its high selling price, I like the idea that people can buy smaller and fractional shares of Bitcoin called a Satoshis. You can get one for as low as $5.

This gives low-income earners the opportunity to build wealth, even if it is a gradual process.

Based on this thinking, do you see this as a solution to help bridge income inequality gaps?

Please let me know your thoughts.