Peer-to-Peer & Non-Possessory Control is the Real Value Proposition Sit back and think how many times characters in movies and books have bartered with gold coins, dreamt of gold bars or spoken of golden objects with a twinkle of lust in their eyes. There are practical reasons that gold finds itself as the default placeholder for a thing of value regardless of the time period, character-plight or geographical location. Gold transcends nearly all hypothetical barriers, not simply because of scarcity, but because it is an apolitical, non-centrally-controlled, trustless commodity that is traded almost entirely peer-to-peer . You can be transported in a time machine or spend years traversing Mordor, but when you find civilization, someone in exchange for much needed sustenance (or an army with ships). While its market value will likely have changed in your absence, regimes toppled and entire people displaced, will remain impervious to systemic externalities. will accept your gold gold’s utility But how can this be? Its most fundamental value proposition is as a bearer commodity that requires no third party involvement to exist or be stored. Like , a person needs only to have control over its location and it needs only to be in a person’s control to be bartered. (This is why everyone loves treasure maps!) bearer bonds Cryptocurrencies Are Future Gold and Act As Bearer Instruments The easiest way to explain and similar cryptocurrencies is to refer to them as (like bearer bonds, except they don’t represent an entity’s debt repayment promise). You can send them directly to another person. All you need is over them, via a . Think of a private key as a secret password that you can safely traverse the world, galaxy or plot line with. In fact, you don’t even need to find somewhere safe to keep them, like a vault or freezer. Bitcoins are stored in the open source, public as a protocol waiting to be instructed (redeemed) and are only transferable via a private key (a long number mathematically related to a public key). Bitcoin digital bearer instruments control private key 007-esque blockchain While are popular, they aren’t necessary to control Bitcoin. Online wallets, or hot-wallets, make it more practical to send and receive Bitcoin, but wallets are only as secure as your password and Bitcoin client software. Bitcoin wallets In its purest state, all a person needs is a private key to access a fortune. Private keys are unique and correspond to public keys, which like an email address is where mail/Bitcoin is sent and is deposited. These keys can be sent physically or electronically. They can be encrypted, portioned or . is something surely every writer wished was at their disposable and wasn’t until now — without magic of course. hidden in plain sight Non-possessory control over a publicly visible, yet unredeemable (without the private key) stash of treasure I’m , Founder AI for enterprise to analyze, visualize and summarize text. Attorney. Chase Perkins @Thoughtly_me Thoughtly

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Cryptocurrencies: Future-Bearer Instruments of Choice

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