Thanks to the advent of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, the internet now provides us with a monetary system that exists free of any central authority. The money exists on a decentralized ledger known as a blockchain. A blockchain is a continuously growing list of data blocks secured by cryptography. It is an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions in a verifiable and permanent way that is secured by a peer-to-peer network that prevents alteration of old blocks, thus ensuring the security of the system.
This new paradigm of money as data or money as a service, is already displacing government money in a very significant and important way. When people can choose to use money that gains in value as more people embrace it, (the way that most cryptocurrencies are designed) no one will choose to use government money that is designed to lose value, as a means of ripping off the people forced to use it. Embracing cryptocurrencies to take the money racket away from government, might be the most important thing we can do to achieve a free society.
