We built the Blockchain Wallet because we’re driven by a relentless passion for making crypto easy to use. We want everyone to be able to use it, not just invest in it.
We believe that owning and controlling your own private key is the single most important aspect of using crypto. Without a private key, you aren’t using crypto – you’re just speculating and you’re missing the defining part of crypto: user controlled, sovereign money.
It was enabling that exact need that underpinned the development of the Blockchain Wallet six years ago. The mission? Make it easy for every user to have their own private key, to get users away from storing funds at exchanges and “bitcoin banks”, and to enable everyone to be their own bank.
Fast forward six years and we’ve achieved a few things that we’re proud of:
Building the first cross-platform, non-custodial, and cross-chain wallet
Signing up 30 million wallets in 140 countries globally
Powering over $200 billion in consumer transaction volume and over 80 million consumer crypto transactions in the last two years alone
Championing the cause of financial sovereignty and user-control with regulators around the world. (We’ve spent thousands of hours and millions on education and outreach.)
Helping our users store millions of BTC, BCH & ETH coins and generate over a quarter of bitcoin network traffic alone
Most importantly, it’s been a honor and privilege to be the first place tens of millions of people turn in order to actually use crypto and hold their own keys.
But there’s a lot still to do.
At the end of the last bull run, we did a serious self-assessment and asked ourselves, what do users need that we aren’t delivering today? We identified four common requests and frustrations:
Better, faster ways for new users to get their first crypto and make their first transaction
More storage types, like hardware, as users’ balances increased
More assets as users want to store and use an increasingly diverse asset set
Better, more reliable sources of liquidity as trading and investing across assets continues to increase
Satisfying these demands meant building a huge extension of our platform, at scale. We’ve had our heads down much of this year doing exactly that and starting today we’re excited to begin delivering new solutions to you, beginning with two new capabilities.
First, we’re launching Swap by Blockchain: a next generation trading product with best-in-class liquidity and execution, powered by our new machine trading software platform that ensures best execution across assets. Blockchain Wallet users will now have access to exchange-like prices without giving up control of their keys or their crypto. And trade limits will increase from hundreds to thousands of dollars of crypto per trade.
While the system currently has deep liquidity drawn from a variety of sources, we plan to add more liquidity sources over time, including decentralized exchange protocols. We’ve rebuilt our risk and KYC systems, so that you can onboard with ease, in minutes. Swap ensures our users stay liquid and can trade at the best prices in the market, regardless of overall market volatility and challenges. We’ve started rolling Swap out today and everyone will have access over the next two weeks.
Secondly, we’re launching Lockbox: a hardware vault in your pocket, built in partnership with hardware leader Ledger. Lockbox is simple to use and is even more secure thanks to a locked endpoint that prevents phishing and spoofing attacks. It’s hardware made easy, with a setup that takes just a few moments thanks to our custom hardware-software integration.
With Lockbox you’re able to check your balance and receive transactions, on mobile and web, without the inconvenience of having to plug your device in every time. In an industry first, you’ll also be able to trade directly from your Lockbox while still maintaining your keys. In conjunction with Lockbox, we’re also excited to let current Ledger device owners seamlessly pair with the Blockchain Wallet and trade directly from the Ledger device they already own.
And we have more coming this year, including additional assets and new products within the Blockchain Wallet that will bring you new, faster, and better ways to get started in crypto.
We’re here to build a new financial system and the Blockchain Wallet is your passport to that new world. Store crypto, trade crypto, transact with crypto and most importantly truly own and control your crypto.
We’re dedicated to building the functionality you want, without compromising your control of your key. Your crypto is yours, and it should stay that way.
Some tin-foil hat conspiracy theorists believe government devised and built bitcoin as weaponized money to enslave the people. They think Big Brother made the technology to subjugate everyone, and that politicians are somehow benefiting from the technology. In an odd twist of logic, these people believe bitcoin represents a state-sponsored tool for control.
Also read:
bitcoin Was Built by Crypto-Anarchists
Government did not create bitcoin as weaponized money. The opposite is true. Crypto-anarchists constructed bitcoin to undermine and destabilize governments. The exact creator of bitcoin is unknown. The individual’s pseudonym is Satoshi Nakamoto but it could also be a group of people. No one knows.
However, we are intimately acquainted with the people who fleshed out the original blueprint for bitcoin. Cypherpunks like, Timothy May, Eric Hughes, and Whitfield Diffie are responsible for declaring the vision for crypto. None of these people cared for governments. They were mainly anarchists who wanted to use dissident tech to uphold freedom, privacy, and anonymity.
In , written in 1993, Eric Hughes said, “We the Cypherpunks are dedicated to building anonymous systems. We are defending our privacy with cryptography, with anonymous mail forwarding systems, with digital signatures, and with electronic money.”
Hughes continued: “Cypherpunks write code. We know that someone has to write software to defend privacy, and since we can’t get privacy unless we all do, we’re going to write it. We publish our code so that our fellow Cypherpunks may practice and play with it. Our code is free for all to use, worldwide. We don’t much care if you don’t approve of the software we write. We know that software can’t be destroyed and that a widely dispersed system can’t be shut down.”
Characteristics of bitcoin
The characteristics of bitcoin are imbued with the aforesaid cypherpunk features.
The fact governments cannot manipulate the circulating supply of bitcoin means they can’t defraud people through arbitrary hyperinflation. The fact bitcoin is peer-to-peer and censorship-resistant implies governments can’t freeze accounts, halt transactions, or steal money. These features attest to the purpose of the tech.
bitcoin’s characteristics are not something governments would purposely build into a currency to control people. Its features are antithetical to control. Why would government make a decentralized currency that does not support its agenda?
Governments Could Be Co-Opting bitcoin
However, there is a major caveat. Governments did not build bitcoin or develop its features, but they may be trying to co-opt it. For instance, bitcoin Core developers have neutered many of bitcoin’s anti-government features. They have striped away bitcoin’s digital signature architecture, and failed to scale the block size of bitcoin, turning it into a milquetoast technology.
The Core development team and the company Blockstream initiated this questionable maneuver. Some people believe they are being funded by “globalists” and other big government cronies.
One claimed, “Blockstream is now controlled by the Bilderberg Group – seriously! AXA Strategic Ventures, co-lead investor for Blockstream’s $55 million financing round, is the investment arm of French insurance giant AXA Group – whose .”
Jeff Berwick also commented on this issue in an older Dollar Vigilante called “bitcoin War Begins – bitcoin Cash Rises 50% While bitcoin Drops $1,000 In 24 Hours,” writing:
Who owns Blockstream? Well, one of the main shareholders is insurance giant AXA. CEO and Chairman of both the Bilderberg Group and AXA are the same person, Henri de Castries. Yes, essentially, the person most in control of bitcoin development is the Chairman of Bilderberg; the place that I have gone for the last three years to expose from the outside! .
I am not making any statements regarding the veracity of the above claims, as they hint at conspiracy themselves. What matters is that bitcoin’s cypherpunk features have been eroded for the purpose of control. Fact: central bankers put money into bitcoin. Then the code began to change, making transaction fees soar and confirmation times slow to a snail’s pace in late 2017.
Satoshi’s Vision: bitcoin Cash to the Rescue
I still believe freedom-lovers can win. No one can stop the signal. The genie is out of the bottle and there is now a competing market of alternative coins. People can choose the money they love. This means Fedcoin is just another token in a vast market of currencies, and no one will consciously use coins that are inefficient or engender slavery.
The more honest version of bitcoin — bitcoin cash — is now widely available for use. It is Satoshi Nakamoto’s original vision. It has expanded block size and super low fees. If cryptocurrency connoisseurs are going to succeed in their mission to thwart government, tools like bitcoin cash are going to be what they use to win. These are the crypto-anarchist tools that the early cypherpunks envisioned.
So no. Government certainly did not build bitcoin. But if the community forgets its cypherpunk origins, politicians may subvert the tech and use it against us. Eternal vigilance in this ecosystem is mandatory for the preservation of privacy and freedom.
Who do you think created bitcoin? Did the cypherpunks or government build it?
Images courtesy of Shutterstock
OP-ed disclaimer: This is an Op-ed article. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own. bitcoin.com does not endorse nor support views, opinions or conclusions drawn in this post. bitcoin.com is not responsible for or liable for any content, accuracy or quality within the Op-ed article. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the content. bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any information in this Op-ed article.
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