Bitcoin could become irrelevant if any of the ideas put forth by MIT students become a reality. First though, let’s go back to 2008 when the US went through the worst recession in history; it was even considered to be greater than the “great depression”.[1] The cause of it ultimately came down to the banks issuing money/mortgages to individuals that they didn’t have and the housing market burst as a result.
A year later, the still unknown Satoshi Nakamoto served the world an entirely new solution to the problem and Bitcoin was born. Nakamoto’s original whitepaper outlined a peer-to-peer electronic payment system. It removed the need for a financial institution to be the intermediary between two people when sending money to one another. Now almost a decade later, there are 24 million active Bitcoin wallets currently in use around the globe.
Back in 2011, a single Bitcoin was worth around a dollar, but today, BTC is valued at just over $9,300. The coin reached its record-high of just over $20,000 in mid-December 2017 and grew 1,245% in 2017 alone.
Despite its popularity, a tech writer at the world-renowned MIT – Morgan Peck, just proposed a scenario (or three) where Bitcoin could become irrelevant. Let’s take a closer look.
Bitcoin could become irrelevant: Government Takedown
The first scenario entails the government creating their own form of digital currency – dubbed “Fedcoins”. This is basically the same system we currently have, except everything is electronic. You would set up a “wallet” with the Federal Reserve or an affiliate bank, and you’d be able to buy the digital currency with US dollars at a one-to-one ratio. The nodes, or computers running the blockchain, would be updated by institutions approved by the federal reserve. An undergraduate at
