We live in a public world, where everything is shared. Whether it’s on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Reddit, Millennials are good at one thing. They share details about everything in their daily lives to complete strangers; they give their personal beliefs on habits and even financials.
The old saying “never tell anyone how much money you make” is still valid. You could quickly become a target if strangers known your wealth. When it comes to cryptocurrency in general and bitcoin in particular, heightened security is the irreducible minimum. Bitcoin is extremely secure; the difference is in the way that you store yours.
Eyes in the Shadows
These days you don’t have to tell people that you have invested in Bitcoin to know you do. If you share a lot of personal information online, people can piece together information and target you physically, but primarily digitally. Have you realized that when you search for something online, like a vacation to place XYZ, you start seeing adverts for hotel deals and cheap flights to the same place? Do you realize what just happened?
While online advertising has always been there with us since the advent of the internet, sophistication is now immeasurable. The Ads you see on your social media pages are the digital stalking product by companies tracking your every online move. They even have ways to associate two different devices belonging to the same user. Ostensibly, this data is collected, analyzed, and used to target us with relevant ads, but it can also be used in other ways. Using common-sense becomes an essential tool in the sharing world that we live in. In social media and digital cash, Privacy is necessary – they have eyes in the shadows.
True Names not required
Leading online entities like Facebook, Google, and Amazon have made us believe that we only have one identity. They use algorithms that have been to understand us better than we know ourselves to cut a character for us, which they package and sell to the highest bidder. Governments and banks do the same thing but minus the promises.
However, identity is colorful, and your person depends on context and circumstances both in the real world and online. That’s why you wear a different personality when in a night club instead of being at a funeral. Similarly, you present yourself differently on Instagram from LinkedIn. You are a different person depending on whether you are talking to your boss, your lover, child, pastor, or your co-worker. The creators of bitcoin recognized that a free society could not function in a rigid society. A free community needs an option to selectively reveal yourself to your world instead of exposing yourself to all. Eric Hughes put it this way:
“Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age. Privacy is not secrecy. A private matter is something one doesn’t want the whole world to know, but a secret matter is something one doesn’t want anybody to know. Privacy is the power to reveal oneself to the world selectively.”
Bitcoin has revealed to the world that you can be taken seriously by the world without informing your real name. You’ve seen successful authors publish bestselling books using aliases or pseudonyms. In the same way, Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of bitcoin, has kept his true identity a mystery. That way, he can remove himself from the picture and let bitcoin have its own life. Bitcoin was given to us, and now it is merely. It doesn’t require an identifiable creator because True Names are not necessary.
A peaceful Revolution
Picture this, you get up every morning and go to the baker, say hi, hand him some money, he gives you a loaf of bread, and that’s it. The baker, the bread, or the money don’t know you, and everyone is comfortable. Now think about online payments, the system in the online shop knows everything about you or else it forces you to register. That’s what all payment processors like PayPal and credit card companies do before they let you into their system. Some third-party must approve the transaction and only if they know your identity.
Enter bitcoin, and all that nonsense is shoved down the drain; Bitcoin enables you to return to a saner world where no one has to force you to reveal your identity. They don’t care who you are, and you don’t need anyone’s approval. The bitcoin system doesn’t force you to show your passport, your face, or ID card and doesn’t care whether you are human in the first place.
The bitcoin system creates a financial system that doesn’t discriminate. You can build your life towards a future where you don’t have to reveal your true identity. One by one, people and institutions are beginning to discover bitcoin’s beauty and join the peaceful revolution. A future where you can use your actual name as and only when you decide to, but it’s not mandatory; this is what bitcoin offers.
