Bitcoin Is Not Crypto
Why mixing them up hides the real story
The first step to understanding Bitcoin is to see the problem it solves. Humanity has always searched for a reliable measure of value, a ruler for money. Just like science depends on fixed units for length, weight, or time, we need a fixed scale for value. Only something perfectly scarce can serve this role. To work as money, the unit must be secure, trusted, and impossible to create more of at will.
The problem today is fiat money. We call it fiat because it comes into existence by decree, created at will by governments and central banks rather than earned through work or bound by scarcity. The word itself comes from Latin: “fiat” means “let it be done” or “let it happen”, which reflects the nature of money issued not by effort or discovery, but by command.
Governments and central banks can create fiat money endlessly, which distorts everything. Inflation is the most visible symptom, but the consequences spread wider: inequality, wasted resources, short-term thinking and even wars fueled by easy money. A tool meant to measure value ends up manipulated and the signals it gives no longer reflect reality.
Bitcoin was the first breakthrough. It combined decentralization, independence from institutions, unchangeable rules and a fixed limit of 21 million units. For the first time, money could exist outside human manipulation. Over the years, more people have recognized this solution and Bitcoin’s resilience has only reinforced its role as a reliable monetary standard.
What about the thousands of other tokens called “crypto”? They break the scarcity logic. New ones can be created by the thousands each day, and their rules can be changed or abandoned at any moment. In this way, they resemble fiat (governmental) money, just faster and easier to inflate. Over time, as people learn the difference, their value drifts toward zero. If humanity truly wants to solve this problem, and it matters, because distorted money is at the root of persistent poverty, it must adopt by consensus a perfectly scarce measure of value. And it must stick with it. Bitcoin already is that instrument.
Therefore, it is essential not to mix these concepts or confuse Bitcoin with a collection called “crypto”. Bitcoin is a protocol that belongs to something entirely separate, a new and independent system. By contrast, “crypto” and all the so-called altcoins remain part of the old world of fiat, where money can be endlessly created.
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