BITCOIN, THE INTERNET OF MONEY: ANALOGY OR REALITY?
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It has become common in techie and Bitcoin circles to talk about Bitcoin the way we once talked about the emergence of the Internet Protocol. As a fundamental network, neutral, impersonal, yet full of potential. It is sometimes called the "Internet of Money," just as the Web was referred to as the "Internet of Information." But is this oft-repeated phrase a pedagogical analogy or a profound reality? Does Bitcoin play the same role for value as TCP/IP did for data, or SMTP for email? Can we really build on Bitcoin the way we built the Web? And most importantly, does this mean that Bitcoin is moving beyond "mere money" to become a fundamental infrastructure of the digital age?
Let's go back to when the Internet was still just a collection of machines linked by telephone. In the early 1980s, researchers around the world were looking for a way to make computers communicate with each other. TCP/IP, that pair of protocols, was the spark. A common, standardized, freely accessible language that made it possible to connect machines without a central authority, without a predefined hierarchy. The genius wasn't in the complexity, but in the universality: a minimal grammar, but sufficient to transmit any packet of information. And with that, the world changed. HTTP came next, then HTML, and the Web began to be woven above the raw ground of the network. Email, forums, blogs, social networks, videos... everything sprang from this foundation: an open, interoperable, decentralized protocol.
Bitcoin, in its essence, does the same thing. It defines a language, a minimal grammar for exchanging not information, but value. What TCP/IP did for bytes, Bitcoin does for satoshis. And the comparison isn't just about the logical structure or the underlying technology, it's about the cultural rupture it represents. Because before Bitcoin, there was no native way on the internet to transfer value without going through a third party. You could send a message, a file, a piece of code, but not a payment without involving an external entity: bank, credit card, PayPal, Stripe. All these services aren't protocols; they're platforms. And platforms obey political, commercial, and legal rules. They can censor, shut down, track, and ban. They're not neutral.
Bitcoin came to fill this void. It didn't simply invent a digital currency. It defined a new layer of the network. A monetary protocol, free, universal, incorruptible. As such, it is indeed a protocol in the strict sense. You can connect to it. You can read it, write it, and transmit it. It doesn't require permission. It works, no matter what, as long as at least two nodes still speak it.
And yet, many continue to reduce Bitcoin to a "speculative currency." As if gold were just a gamble. As if TCP/IP were just a gadget for geeks. We sometimes hear: "Yes, Bitcoin is good, but it's no substitute for the euro in everyday life." Or: "Can you really use it to buy bread?" These questions are beside the point. Bitcoin is not an application. It's a layer. It's not a startup. It's an infrastructure. It's not a solution for consuming faster. It's a solution for transmitting value without compromise.
Those who witnessed the birth of the Internet know that true revolutions are often invisible at first. When the Web emerged, few people understood that it would absorb the press, music, television, commerce, and diplomacy. When exchange protocols appeared, they seemed useless, anecdotal. But once the layers were in place, uses flourished. Similarly, today, Bitcoin seems slow, expensive, or marginal. But it is there, like a seed. And this seed carries within it a profound change: that of a world without central banks, without borders, without mandatory trust in a third party. The world of an Internet that also speaks the language of money.
The Bitcoin protocol is based on a few simple but inviolable rules: a limited edition of 21 million units, a cryptographic signature, a distributed ledger, and proof of work. These rules are non-negotiable. They cannot be twisted by decree. They cannot be censored without breaking the entire system. It is this invariance that makes it a protocol. And it is this robustness that allows it to be compared to Internet protocols. SMTP does not play politics. HTTP does not choose the sites it transports. Bitcoin does not choose the transactions it validates. It is neutral by nature. And in this increasingly polarized, controlled, and observed world, such neutrality is revolutionary.
Some argue that Bitcoin is too slow to be useful. That its ten minutes per block don't allow for rapid savings. But once again, this is confusing the base layer with the application. The Bitcoin protocol, like TCP/IP, is not intended to be user-friendly. It is there to ensure consistency, security, and verifiability. The upper layers will do the rest. Just as we never directly consult a TCP/IP server, but a website or an app, we will probably not always interact with Bitcoin's layer 1. Networks like Lightning, Fedimint, and Cashu are already adding functional, agile, and fast layers on top of this base. Universality will come later, as always.
So yes, the analogy with the Internet is not just a metaphor. It is well-founded. Bitcoin is not a company, nor a national currency, nor a simple store of value. It is a universal grammar for exchanging the most fundamental thing: trust. And just as the Internet disintermediated speech, Bitcoin disintermediates debt. Where speech used to pass through journalists, publishing houses, TV channels, today it passes through protocols. Where money passed through banks, states, credit systems, Bitcoin opens a door to a new form of exchange: pure, brutal, unfiltered. A Bitcoin transaction is a raw line on the network, a sovereign declaration. No need for authorization. No need for explanation. It's there. And it's irreversible.
This can be disturbing. It should be disturbing. Because Bitcoin, like the Internet, is not politically neutral. It embodies a vision of the world. That of value transmitted without permission. That of an individual who chooses his or her rules. That of a society founded on code rather than institutions. It is a rupture as important as the invention of the printing press, or the emergence of mathematical languages. A new language is born. A language whose syntax is made of blocks, hashes, signatures. A language that can be learned, but not tampered with.
Governments may oppose it. Banks may mock it. Pundits may ridicule it. But the history of protocols is relentless. Once they work, once they are adopted, they become unstoppable. We didn't ban SMTP to protect the postal service. We didn't ban HTTP to protect television. We can't ban Bitcoin to protect the dollar. Too late. The code is gone. The nodes have scattered. The blocks keep falling, relentlessly, like digital heartbeats. 10 minutes. 10 minutes. 10 minutes. Again. And again. And again.
That's what a protocol is. That's what Bitcoin is. An invisible but unstoppable foundation. A primitive structure on which an Internet of value might one day be built. A network where we can send not just words, images, or videos, but also time, effort, and trust encapsulated in satoshis. Not an app, not a gimmicky currency, but a backbone. A skeleton for a free economy.
So, basically, is this an analogy or a reality? It's both. It's an analogy that becomes true the more we understand it. Just as we understand that HTTP enabled the web, that SMTP enabled email, Bitcoin enables freedom. Not in theory. Not in books. But in code. In the network. In raw reality. And this reality can be denied, ignored, mocked. But it's there. And it pushes, every day, every block, a little further into the future.
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