Since the dawn of time, the global economy has experienced constant revolutions. From the origins of the economy with bartering to the international economy we have now, allowing us to access any resources, technology has been a huge factor for the development of our economy.
The latest major revolution has been the Internet. This network which appeared in the early 1990s allowed major changes in our global economy and our social life. Banking, trading, Retail, Food, Insurances... All industries have been affected by this new technology and had to adapt to stay competitive. It is also worth mentioning that new types of companies and business models appeared thanks to the possibility created by the new technology, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, Airbnb, or Uber.
Nowadays, our society is ever more connected and new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of things, and Blockchain are penetrating the market and playing an increasingly significant role. All of these new innovations are changing and shaping totally new ecosystems and business models for companies. They now need to be in adequacy with this digital world.
This fast, technology-driven society is now affecting our traditional currency, with the creation of a new type of money called digital currency or “cryptocurrency”. The first effective cryptocurrency appeared amid the world economic crisis of 2008 and is called “Bitcoin”. Its creator, Mr. Satoshi Nakamoto launched a revolutionary system of “Peer to Peer Electronic cash system”.
Ten years later, Bitcoin has become worldly known with the boom of 2017 that saw the currency value surge 1500%. Nowadays, we can count more than 5000 different cryptocurrencies with a total market value exceeding $300 billion. However, this market is very volatile and uncertain as we saw recently with the crash of the bitcoin that lost almost half of its value in under 1 month.
So how did this so volatile cryptocurrency “Bitcoin” become so popular? How does it work and what is so special about it? In order to understand what Bitcoin is, we need to understand the technology it is built on; the blockchain.
