Money is one of the most central elements in all of our lives yet most of us know little about how it works. We all use money. We want it, work for it, think about it and pray we have lots of it. Money is the way we get things we need and desire. Even the Holy book says ‘’Money answers all things’’.

So what is money and where did it come from? According to Wikipedia, ‘Money is any clearly identifiable object of value that is generally accepted as payment for good and services and repayment of debts within a market’. So many things have been used as a medium of exchange such as livestock, cowry shells, precious metals, coins, promissory notes and a whole lot more. Money in and of itself is nothing. It derives its value by being a medium of exchange which everyone knows that everyone else will accept as a form of payment.
Money has been a part of human history from almost 3,000years.

In 9000 BC, the early men bartered goods they had in surplus for the ones they did not have.
In 1100 BC, the Chinese started using small replicas of goods cast from bronze as a means of exchange.
In 600 BC, the first currency was minted in Lydia which is now known as Eastern Turkey.
In 1816 AD and 1879AD Gold became the official standard of value in England and America respectively.
In 1860 AD, Western Union stated E-money with electronic fund transfer via telegram.
In 1967 AD, England received the world’s first ATM.
In 1999 AD, Mobile Banking started with primitive smart phones.
In 2009 AD, Bitcoin was launched as the world’s first fully implemented decentralized cryptocurrency.

There has always been one form of inconvenience or the other with every form of medium of exchange hence the need for constant improvement. For example, in the ancient times, there must be coincidence of wants before two people can trade by barter and presently people are unable to send money to one another at the same speed they communicate over the internet. A popular proverb says ‘Necessity is the mother of invention ’. One of the greatest inventions of our time is the Internet which is a decentralized information system that allows us to communicate instantly. Before the internet, we needed permission to broadcast our opinions (via newspapers, TV stations etc.) but now we can send any idea instantly and cheaply directly between ourselves and this has completely changed our society.

The internet has become a huge part of our lives in fact; many people in today’s generation cannot imagine life without having this technological advantage. This is the reason why technology experts are doing all the best they can to improve our technology. A question arose: if we can send images, videos, documents etc. over the internet at the speed of light and even transact business using intermediaries like PayPal and online banking to make payments, why can’t we find a way to send money which is one of the most important thing to humans over the internet instantly and cheaply without intermediaries. When content is sent over the internet, both the person sending and the person receiving would both have copies but for money to keep its value, it had to exist only in one place per time. The internet had to be secured in such a way that will guarantee that money will not be changed, copied or duplicated.
The internet caused an explosion of innovation because it was built on open architecture and just the same way it changed the way we communicate, programmable money will change the way we allocate and decide value (money).

Cryptocurrencies are the first step to a world of global programmable money and Bitcoin is the most ubiquitous cryptocurrency but there are lots of them like Ethereum, Litecoin, and Dogecoin to mention a few. Bitcoin and the technology behind it called the blockchain will allow us to safely send digital money over the public internet directly between us without any intermediary. Bitcoin is a peer to peer version of electronic cash that allows online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without any intermediary. Blockchain is a public distributed database (not owned by anyone but stored on several secured computes across the world) and constantly synchronized to keep transactions up to date and secured by the art of cryptography making it tamper and hacker proof.

New bitcoins are generated by a competitive and decentralized process called mining. This process rewards individuals for their services. Bitcoin miners are processing transactions and securing the network using specialized hardware and collect new bitcoins in exchange. Besides being created as a reward for mining, bitcoins can be exchanged for other currencies, products and services. Cryptocurrency trading is the Forex of cryptocurrency just like Forex trading is a decentralized global market where all the worlds currencies trade. Bitcoin and altcoins can be traded on different exchanges.
Anyone can become a bitcoin miner. You can download the software right now and run it on your computer to get some bitcoins but we won’t recommend it because right now, the process is harder and the network is so powerful that you will lose more trying to get the Bitcoin than gain unless you get customized mining machines with huge computing power which is rather expensive. Anyone can also become a cryptocurrency trader but you will need to really understand the market, have dedicated time to follow the trend and be informed in order to take smart and timely decisions.
Please note all new technologies come with tradeoffs. The internet brought us a lot of ways to waste time, and has connected all computers to each other making it easier for hackers to scan millions of computers and quickly identify what computers are vulnerable to attack. We are entering a new era with programmable money which is both scary and exciting. Cryptocurrencies can be used for illegal transactions just like cash is used for crime in the world today. The bitcoin technology is still new, there are some technological and regulatory questions that still need to be addressed but there is no doubt this will be resolved soon.

Looking back to the early 90’s now, no one knew how much of a ground breaking technology the internet would be and how much it would influence our lives over time. We wonder what we will say if we look back 20 years from now and see how much the blockchain technology has changed our lives the same way the internet has.

It is a very long write up but worth reading. There is need to understand the genesis and evolution of what we all go out daily to look for before we go into more interesting topics of how to get and keep it.