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@ Nico Sobrino
2025-05-09 16:54:32
Bitcoin is like the Internet in the 90s
When the Internet was born, many saw it as an academic experiment. Sending an email was slow, inefficient, and limited to plain text. But that apparent simplicity hid something much bigger: a robust, open protocol on which anything could be built.
Over time, new layers arrived.
HTTP enabled the web. Suddenly, browsing pages became accessible to millions. Later, other protocols like UDP made the unthinkable possible at the time: video streaming, real-time calls, online gaming… things even the pioneers couldn’t have imagined when they sent that first email.
Bitcoin is following the same path.
Today, many criticize it for being slow or expensive for micropayments. But that’s like judging the Internet by how email worked at the beginning. Bitcoin isn’t finished—it’s just getting started.
Lightning Network, for example, is like the UDP of money: it enables instant payments without congesting the base layer. And not just payments—simple smart contracts, closed economies, microincentives, entirely new business models.
And that’s just one of the layers.
Solutions like RGB are being developed to issue tokens on Bitcoin; Fedimint combines privacy with community custody; Nostr uses Lightning payments to moderate social networks without censorship.
Just like HTTP and UDP paved the way for YouTube, Zoom, Twitter, or Amazon, Bitcoin and its layers are laying the foundation for new financial, social, and identity services that don’t rely on intermediaries.
The question isn’t what #Bitcoin can do today, but what it will enable tomorrow.
First came the protocol. Next comes the revolution.