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Bitcoin: A Financial Institution Eliminating The Need
For A Trust-Based Model
To a significant degree, the financial system’s weakness today is a function of a trust-based
model controlled by centralized institutions. Human bias and error exposes participants to
mismanagement, creating an unpredictable environment for economic activity.
Enter the Information Age and a new economic order unleashed by computer science and
cryptography. During the Global Financial Crisis in 2009, the Internet birthed Bitcoin, a financial
system without a centralized authority.
Bitcoin fundamentally shifts how a financial system distributes trust, eliminating the roles of
several institutions that rely on centralized authorities and creating an ecosystem based on
computer science and cryptography. In contrast to a central bank that controls monetary policy,
or a commercial bank that controls the custody of assets, or a payment processor that controls consumer transactions, the Bitcoin network and all of its participants oversee all such functions
What is Bitcoin?
At its core, Bitcoin is free and open source software (FOSS), code that lives on the Internet.
Individuals can run the code or copy it and create their own variant. The Bitcoin network is
a complete financial system that facilitates the transfer and custody of bitcoin, a new digital
monetary asset.
Lowercase ‘b’ bitcoin, the asset, is a standardized unit of value embedded in the network. Its value
acts as the signaling mechanism that aligns network stakeholders. In some ways, we believe it is
the purest form of money ever created:
• It is a digital bearer asset similar to a commodity.
• It is scarce, divisible, portable, transferable, and fungible.
• It is an asset that can be matched by equity and custodied without liability or counterparty risk.
Importantly, bitcoin’s properties are native to the Bitcoin network.
While existing institutions must coordinate the functions of a financial system, Bitcoin operates
as a single institution. Instead of relying on accountants, regulators, and the government, Bitcoin
relies on a global network of peers to enforce rules, shifting enforcement from manual, local,
and inconsistent to automated, global, and predictable.
While traditional financial institutions are subject to appeal, Bitcoin has no such fallback. Bitcoin
transactions do not rely on trust but must be verified. In the absence of central enforcement,
its integrity is a function of its openness and transparency, a challenge to old world financial
institutions.