There are several reasons why I love Blockchain Technology and one of its first global implementation; Bitcoin.

Let’s start with characteristics of Blockchain Technology:

• It’s Distributed. That means, it’s not control by a group of people, organization or even a government. It also means that it’s Censorship Resistant. There’s no one central place that can “shutdown” or “change” the protocol or discriminate the users of the network.
• It’s Immutable. You cannot go and change any part of the consensus chain. Once the consensus is reached, the data is there forever! Which makes the whole system very Transparent. People and software can easily validate the legitimacy of the transactions that they are dealing with.
• It’s Encrypted. So the data can be safely stored in the network. Mathematically related Public-Private key pairs are created using the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) and users of the network can easily validate the correctness and the ownership of data, without giving away their precious private keys.
• It’s Peer-to-Peer. This is one of my favorite characteristics of Blockchain. This revolutionary attribute of Blockchain allows us interact with each other without the need of a third party. We can finally empower the person on the other side of the world, directly!
• It’s Trust-less/Permissionless. We don’t have to rely on a third-party company, organization or group of people to manage our business or interactions. We can rely on the software and strong math behind the technology.
•  It’s Open. Even though we could create “Private” Blockchains, the main benefits of this technology will come from being Open and Global. Anyone with the Internet connection (or even some cases, without needing to be connected to the Internet), we are able to interact with the system and each other; no matter where we might be.

Via these powerful features of Blockchain, we are able to create “Disruptive” systems and solutions; replacing the current (mostly corrupted systems and processes) with trust-less, immutable, censorship resistant, peer-to-peer, open and global revolutionary technology!

Let’s also review the characteristics of Bitcoin and why it is called the Internet of Money:

Before we do that, let’s take a look at what makes something “Money”

On top of every advantage of being implemented on Blockchain, Bitcoin has all the characteristic of Money, and in certain areas, it exceeds the limitation of Cash or Precious Metals, such as Gold. Bitcoin is:

• Fungible
• Durable
• Divisible
• Portable
• Acceptable
• Uniform
• Limited in Supply

Here’s a nice comparison of Bitcoin vs. Credit Card Systems from an End User Experience point of view (click on the picture to see the larger version):