Author: Pingsen Chow
Beijing National Day School, Beijing, China
Abstract
Bitcoin is an increasingly popular cryptocurrency all over the world, originally introduced by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. Most Bitcoin speculators and miners, who engage in Bitcoin networks, find it a good way to make money, and, therefore, believe it makes our economies better. However, this may not be the case. In this essay, we aim to evaluate the effect of Bitcoins on the economy, judging whether it is a “blessing” or a “curse”. The Evaluation is based on prior studies of Bitcoin, and data collected by the authoritative institutions, such as the Federal Reserve System, European Central Bank, Bitcoinist, Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance and so on. Although, posting the seminal whitepaper in 2008 and launching the initial code in 2009, Nakamoto initially designed Bitcoin as a form of “cash” that could be sent from peer-to-peer without the need for a central bank or other authority to operate and maintain the ledger, much as how physical cash can be, and, hence, to achieve higher efficiency, from various perspectives, including money property, interoperability and energy consumption, In this study, it is analyzed how Bitcoin failed to deliver a perfect, decentralized trading network as Nakamoto imagined.