Why Bitcoin could be considered one of the original Smart Contracts
Bitcoin's supply-side transparency makes it a uniquely positioned commodity.
The simple fact that the supply-rate of newly generated Bitcoins is known and fully predictable down to the day, if not hour - just one of the many unique features of Bitcoin, and likely a first for any commodity - this is the key aspect that one could assert makes Bitcoin perhaps the original “Smart Contract”. By having predictable, existential functions being set in motion by the software itself (essentially a form of artificial intelligence), the Bitcoin protocol demonstrates aspects of a life-form: self-organization, consensus, and the emergence of order.
Throughout much of known human history, supply-side functions and variability have been the closest of guarded secrets, kept by those who profited by keeping such information secret and suppressed. The illusion of separation seems to have created distortions in the minds of humanity, where short-term personal gains are made at great cost to the entire organism. Bitcoin shatters such an illusion and the control of those former power-brokers and occult gatekeepers by being fully transparent and open for one and all to participate in, and realize gains from, directly, without requiring the blessing of some elite class member.
With less than one month until the second such 50% reduction in the Bitcoin supply-rate, and tho some have declared Bitcoin a failed experiment, it continues to fail-forward, towards a 10-Billion dollar market capitalization, at a current price of nearly $600 700. As demand continues to grow for Bitcoin and related services, with a supply-rate reduction, it seems likely that equilibrium will happen with a corresponding rise in value of the token - which has already risen over 40% in the past 60 days.
Are there any known parallels in the history of finance? Has the public ever been in the position to wield such power in a financial network before? If you knew, ahead of time, that one of the rarest of commodities’ supply rate was about to be permanently reduced by 50%, would this not be potentially very profitable information to act upon?
The Spring / Summer of 2016, up until early July, is one such time - perhaps unique in history. We are looking forward to a historic event with the upcoming Bitcoin supply-rate halving and one needs to only realize that this could be opportunity staring them in the face and to answer the call. Even a modest investment made during this window has the potential to yield serious benefits, as this sophomoric supply rate reduction signals the beginning of the end of Bitcoin's first distributional phase. After the "halvening" with fully three-quarters of the entire supply having been mined, it follows that we may soon see a rapidly rising value of Bitcoin.