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So what makes the dollar intrinsically valuable? As far as most know, nothing. In fact, that seems to be the case with almost every currency out there today. This brings up a new form of monetary transactions, Bitcoin. Nobody really knows how Bitcoin was really started or who it was started by, but it is believed to originally be derived from an online message board [5], where in 2008 an unknown person by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto posted an outline of what Bitcoin was and how it worked. It spread very slowly at first, until people started buying more and more of it; though, the first transaction didn’t happen until 2010.
Before we get into that, let’s talk about the next, and arguably most important, chapter in the history of the US dollar, which was the severing of the gold standard that stood behind the dollar. The first attempt to eliminate the gold standard was in 1933, when President Roosevelt attempted to get rid of it as a means of decreasing deflation within the US economy. This policy was removed after just one year. Eventually, the gold standard was completely eliminated in 1971, per orders of President Nixon. Since then, The Dollar has been linked to nothing but the trust of the people and the government standing behind it. [1]
A few of the companies currently backing Blockchain technology.
Bitcoin itself is backed behind the blockchain, which is simply a form of transferring data. To explain the blockchain as simply as possible, it is a form of data transfer where every piece of data is broken up into small pieces between millions of computers. The only way to access this data would be by obtaining all sources of data at the same time [6], creating a ledger that is completely secure and virtually impossible to hack into.
So what is the big deal? Well, the blockchain can be used in infinitely many ways, from just a currency, to forms of storage, and can even be used to significantly boost different companies’ efficiency by finding cheaper and quicker solutions to many financial problems.
Many tech and financial giants are already behind Bitcoin and currencies like Bitcoin. Companies like Microsoft, Intel, JP Morgan, and many more are developing solutions/apps and utilizing cryptocurrencies and the technology behind them, with even more companies considering jumping on board. [3]