"Bitcoin has gone through many massive transformations since that day 17 years ago. It went from a niche internet collectible, to a decentralized network powering illegal dark net markets, to a mainstream speculative investment for retail, to Wall Street and governments all over the world's favorite new asset class. We have all had front row seats to the first explosive global technological revolution to the internet, and it's been a wild ride."
"On this anniversary I think it's important to touch on a concept that is very relevant, POSIWID, or the Purpose Of A System Is What It Does. The basic idea is that when you have a complex system, it is pointless to try to define it based on what you want it to do, what really matters is what the pieces of that complex system are actually doing. That is all that matters at the end of the day."
Bitcoin began as a 2008 proposal and has transformed from a niche internet collectible to a darknet payment mechanism, to a retail speculative asset, to an institutional and governmental investment class. The observable behavior of Bitcoin's network and participants determines its purpose, encapsulated by POSIWID: the Purpose Of A System Is What It Does. The whitepaper supplies a high-level abstract explanation of a Proof-of-Work blockchain used to implement digital currency, not the source-code blueprint. Fixation on the whitepaper as a canonical founding document fuels antagonism toward change and alternative uses, which is an unhealthy stance for such an impactful technology.
Read at Bitcoin Magazine
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