With regards to the article written by former president of the Chilean Central Bank, José De Gregorio[1], the discussion would not be complete without a response by those who adhere to Bitcoin and the technological revolution of money. Without a desire for to polemicized, but looking to add to the discussion, I would like to clarify some objectionable arguments that the article made.
It’s important to make a distinction between bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Although the genre is cryptocurrency, bitcoin has unique characteristics and is separated from the rest of the market by functionalities that belong solely to its protocol. Using both terms without distinction is not correct. For reasons of clarity, I will refer solely to Bitcoin.
Skeptics and critics of Bitcoin generally suffer from what we call “financial privilege[2].” They live in apparent democracies, with property rights, a functioning legal system — at least for some, freedom of speech and a currency that is considered relatively stable (although it is not). Unfortunately, this is the minority. According to the Human Rights Foundation[3], roughly 4.2 billion people live under tyranny or authoritarian regimes. Many people live in countries with two-to-three-digit inflation, and some 1.7 billion people[4] do not have access to basic financial services such as a bank account. Bitcoin fixes this.
Bitcoin allows anybody, anywhere in the world with an internet connection to participate in a decentralized monetary network with clear and fair rules for all. Bitcoin is not controlled by anyone, and its network uses cryptography-branch of mathematics that uses computational code to protect and keep data private over the internet. Its ledger (called a “blockchain,” where all transactions are recorded) is immutable and public. The network does not censor or discriminate and allows
