September 7, 2021, will be forever etched in the history of Bitcoin as the day the first country adopted it as a legal currency. The magic internet money that started in a cryptography mailing list is now recognized by a nation-state as lawful monetary good, being put in the same national status as the dollar in El Salvador. Starting today, any Salvadoran will have the legal option to use bitcoin instead of dollars, increasing their sovereignty over their finances and the financial certainty over their savings.
If I would have told you, in 2009, that a little over a decade from then, a country would fully recognize Bitcoin as a currency, chances are you would have laughed at my face. The truth is, Bitcoin has been developing quicker than most realize. A currency born just a little over ten years ago by a pseudonymous cryptographer is already the currency of choice for millions around the globe who flock to Bitcoin for different reasons. Now, a country has also made that choice.
Indeed, Bitcoin is still early in its life as well as in its adoption cycle. But we might be living through Bitcoin’s very inflection point. Once only geeky internet money, Bitcoin is now shifting priorities worldwide and teaching the economic system what sound money is.
Bitcoin is unique because it allows for vast amounts of value to be transferred in a secure, final, verifiable, permissionless, and unstoppable fashion — 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Moreover, its distributed, peer-to-peer construction and consensus enforcement grants it an actual antifragility status. No single entity can meaningfully influence Bitcoin, yet Bitcoin can meaningfully impact the lives of billions.
The nascent form of money is still being acquainted worldwide, as its sheer complexity demands considerable time and effort to be understood. However, the domino effect is natural and will soon start taking place. As more people begin realizing the transformative nature of Bitcoin and its unique properties and possibilities, more persons, companies, and countries will adopt the best form of money ever created, triggering the biggest monetary revolution in history and the definitive separation of money and state.