The author recalls their experience investing in Bitcoin in November 2017 during the bull run, after which they became convinced that Bitcoin is the most reliable form of money invented by humanity. Despite its proven technological foundation, the widespread adoption of cryptocurrency remains slow.
Criteria for Good Money
Humanity has historically used various forms of money, such as shells, salt, cattle, and glass beads, but all were displaced due to the possibility of cheaper production, leading to the loss of savings for holders of old money. As Robert Bridle states, quality money must possess the following characteristics: divisibility, durability, portability, recognizability, and, most importantly, scarcity. Gold dominated for millennia due to its exceptional rarity, which cannot simply be produced or printed.
Advantages of Bitcoin over Gold
Bitcoin surpasses these criteria: it is divisible into hundred-millionths, has no weight, can be transferred across the planet in minutes, and, critically, its issuance is limited to 21 million units by code that has been functioning for 17 years. The network has demonstrated operational stability with a level above 99.98% (excluding the initial Value Overflow incident and the chain fork in 2013), and its core consensus rules have withstood attacks for over 15 years. Unlike gold, whose supply increases annually by 1–2% due to mining, Bitcoin's issuance schedule is fixed until the last coin is mined around 2140, making it the first currency in history with ideal scarcity.
Furthermore, no company can create the 'best Bitcoin,' because money operates on a 'winner takes all' network effect principle, and trust in Bitcoin is based on a fair, founder-less launch that cannot be replicated; any coin with an issuer requires trust in that party.
Comparison with Fiat Currency
When comparing Bitcoin's ideal scarcity with money in a bank account, it becomes clear that in August 1971, US President Richard Nixon ended the dollar's link to gold. Since then, the entire world has operated on government money not backed by assets, and this experiment has lasted 55 years. The results of this experiment are visible everywhere: since 1971, the dollar has lost about 86% of its purchasing power, while the US money supply M2 has grown from approximately $630 billion to over $22 trillion. The situation with randomness is even worse. The pandemic demonstrated the consequences of active money printing: in 2020, the US money supply increased by 19%, and in 2021, by another 16%, significantly exceeding the average annual rate of 6% over the previous two decades, as about $6.4 trillion in new money was injected into the economy.
The subsequent surge in inflation is not accidental but is a consequence of the financial system's design. Central banks may argue that moderate inflation is an advantage, stimulating spending and giving policymakers the ability to fight recessions. However, the price of this flexibility falls on the shoulders of everyone who saves in this money, i.e., the majority of the world's population, whose funds are constantly being devalued.
Signs of Growing Adoption
Nevertheless, the adoption process is underway. The US created a strategic Bitcoin reserve in 2025, holding about 200,000 confiscated coins. Bhutan converted its reserves into a treasury worth over a billion dollars, El Salvador retains its assets, and Brazil and Kazakhstan are discussing creating their own reserves. Wall Street entered through spot ETFs—the most successful ETF launch in history, attracting $107 billion in the first year. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust became the fastest ETF to reach $80 billion in assets, doing so in 374 days, compared to the previous record holder, SPDR gold ETF, which took 1,691 days. These funds collectively hold over 1.2 million Bitcoins, accounting for nearly 6% of the total supply, and asset storage giants like BNY Mellon and State Street have developed platforms for digital assets.
Despite this, ordinary people remain in the minority. Estimates of Bitcoin ownership vary widely: blockchain analysis indicates about 106 million holders, while 2025 surveys counted about 365 million, including indirect participation through ETFs and fintech applications. With a global population of 8.2 billion, this represents between 1.3% and 4.5%. Most governments do not own Bitcoin at all, which causes a feeling of extreme slowness among enthusiasts.
Expert Opinion on Growth Rate
The question of speed was posed by Farzam Eshani, co-founder and CEO of the crypto exchange VALR, who previously headed blockchain initiatives at Rand Merchant Bank and saw the situation from both sides. He noted that behavioral and societal changes seem slow in the process, but in retrospect, it becomes clear how quickly everything changed. Eshani emphasized that Bitcoin is only 17 years old, which is not considered adulthood in human terms, yet it has transformed from an unknown concept and technology into a multi-trillion-dollar asset class owned by the largest asset managers, institutions, and even central banks.
He confirmed that this year the Czech National Bank acquired Bitcoin for a test portfolio of $1 million, marking the first instance of Bitcoin appearing on a central bank's balance sheet in the EU. Eshani acknowledged that prices have dropped by about 50% from peaks, and Bitcoin trades around $65,000 at the time of writing, compared to a historical high of about $126,000 in October 2025. Nevertheless, he believes that Bitcoin's attractive characteristics—digital scarcity, decentralization, censorship resistance, and native nature on the internet—have remained and strengthened.
In Eshani's view, financial history has repeatedly shown that money changes its form and nature, and civilization evolves. Humanity is currently experiencing one such evolutionary period, transitioning from money belonging to citizens of a specific nation to money belonging to the whole world. He also added that today's young crypto enthusiasts will become future members of the boards of major institutions, and along with the change in leaders, the views and priorities of these organizations will change.
Persistent Obstacles
Existing barriers remain significant. The traditional system is not neutral: the dollar grants enormous privileges to the US, and entire industries—banking, payments, government borrowing—are built on the ability to arbitrarily expand credit. No one voluntarily dismantles their privileges. Regulators act slowly, and rules for institutional custody and accounting required many years to clarify, and volatility still frightens treasurers. Furthermore, energy consumption in Bitcoin mining remains a subject of debate.
The newest threat is quantum computing. Google Quantum AI researcher Craig Giddins showed last year that hacking modern encryption might require 20 times fewer quantum resources than previously assumed. In a subsequent paper in March, jointly with Dan Bonhom from Stanford, it was estimated that elliptic curve cryptography protecting Bitcoin signatures could be compromised by a machine with fewer than 500,000 physical qubits. Although such a machine does not yet exist (the largest processors today have several thousand qubits), Google set a goal of migrating to post-quantum protection by 2029, and the timeline is shortening.
Bitcoin developers are actively working on this. In February, the specification BIP-360, defining a quantum-resistant address type, was integrated into the official Bitcoin repository, and a related proposal by security veteran Jameson Lopp describes a phased transition from vulnerable addresses. Neither has been activated on the network yet, as it requires community consensus and a soft fork. The race is on to achieve this consensus and implement it before a cryptographically significant quantum computer appears, and there are trillions of dollars in incentives for this.
Conclusion: Patience or Necessity?
Perhaps Eshani is right: adoption happens quickly if measured in centuries, which is what gold required, and Bitcoin users just need more patience. However, watching how currency devaluation affects the lives of ordinary people who can buy less every year, patience is wearing thin.
This is particularly noticeable in Africa, where the volume of crypto transactions on the network grew by 52% to over $205 billion before June 2025, largely thanks to Nigerians seeking to escape the depreciating Naira. Venezuela demonstrates an extreme example: amid the collapse of the bolivar and inflation approaching 270%, almost 40% of peer-to-peer transactions are conducted in cryptocurrency. Most of these are dollar-pegged stablecoins, not Bitcoin itself, likely because they seem more familiar. But here the same lesson emerges: when money collapses, people run to the 'hardest' currency they can find. Ordinary people do not wait for permission; they are already gradually abandoning the old system.
As the saying goes, do your own research. The author did not meet anyone who deeply studied Bitcoin and remained doubtful (with the exception of Nassim Taleb, whose main objection applies equally to fiat money in a wallet). Economist Saifedean Ammous wrote an entire book, 'The Bitcoin Standard,' based on the lesson that when monetary systems clash, the hardest currency wins. Seventeen years later, this lesson remains true.
