💸 [Analysis] You Don't Understand Bitcoin Because You Think Money Is Real – Maria Bustillos

A common argument against Bitcoin ($BTC) is that, unlike the USD, it is not backed by anything other than faith. However, U.S. dollars are not backed by anything other than the faith of the fools who accept it as payment and of other fools who agree in turn to accept it as payment from them. The main difference is that, for the moment at least, the illusion, in the case of dollars, is more widely and more fiercely believed. &nbsp In fact, almost all of our U.S. dollars, about 90 percent, are purely abstract — they literally do not exist in any tangible form. Nevertheless, the temptation for leaders of nation-states to manufacture money has historically been practically irresistible. One evident result of this wantonness is inflation. &nbsp Money itself is an illusion, a mass hallucination. The “value” of all money, all stores of exchange, is unstable and abstract, even in the face of every attempt to secure it. &nbsp Our existing financial institutions are deeply flawed, in short, and permanently prone to corruption. Bitcoin was a politically motivated project from the first, a new system explicitly built to provide a tamperproof digital means of exchange on which a better alternative to our existing banking systems might be based. &nbsp Bitcoin's codified way of controlling supply also prevents governments and politically motivated bodies from printing more supply and causing damage for their selfish interests.