The dream of bitcoin is not just about fulfilling the fantasies you have in your brain when shutting your eyes. The reality of bitcoin is about not giving up on that dream. That means doing the work necessary to make the promises of bitcoin come true. That means keeping pushing until the bitcoin dream become a truth. The time is now to wake up and pay attention to the next wave of bitcoin’s existence. Is this next wave the one that carries bitcoin into the mainstream? Is this the wave that brings everyday usability to bitcoin?

First let’s backtrack a bit. It’s 1 January 2016, and so not at the beginning of the crypto era, but more in the middle. Bitcoin has yet to really increase in value with the big jumps and dumps still to come. The price that day was about $430 per bitcoin. You buy $1,000 worth of bitcoin to start off the New Year. You would have made your greatest investment. Today, at the beginning of March the value was about $54,650, which is not bad. In fact, it is really excellent: your return is almost 5,500% in 7 years. Compare this to the stock market which would have returned you about 110% over the same time. This is great, but this is not the dream of bitcoin.

Whatever happened to bitcoin as digital money with high security? Or bitcoin as digital gold? It never caught on like Venmo or Cash App to pay for things daily. We all know that there can be only 21 million bitcoins mined. The last one will likely appear by the year 2100, long after all of us are gone. The idea that bitcoin becomes more valuable when it becomes scarcer may be true, though it may not be proven to be so in our lifetime. Thus, the two most stated benefits of bitcoin are possibly part dream.

Another bitcoin idea is as a non-state-controlled money. This can be useful in countries where the national currency, due to government overspending or corruption, becomes worthless. Up to now, bitcoin has not proven itself as an alternative currency. The needed price stability is not there. Price swings can be as bad as government money. That makes bitcoin an undependable replacement. Nevertheless, it does give you control, in a way that national currencies will not allow you.

Bitcoin’s dream to be the financial system not controlled by any single government is the original dream that’s now becoming a financial reality. Just not with bitcoin. Today there are many kinds of Crypto Assets. Many are technology-wise superior to bitcoin. Bitcoin is still the original, the granddaddy of the crypto world. The dream of bitcoin and crypto assets is replacing money. We have not seen that. What we have seen is the enhancing of the form of money.

Money has been moving to a digital place long before bitcoin. The regular economy is more intermingled with digital fintech every day. This mix in our economy results in value imitation, stronger security, faster processes, and new products that we all can benefit from. bitcoin has inspired all of this, even if it never fulfills the global currency dream.

Bitcoin, that is to say digital money owned by people for people and to benefit people is a dream much bigger than bitcoin itself. The dream is still alive and the potential for bitcoin to become more useful in the next wave of growth is possible. For me, I will hold on to my bitcoin, smartly but also sentimentally as it was the way I first caught the crypto dream.

There may be better investments that we should all consider. Crypto’s as a class is still high risk. Still there are enormous opportunities in this space. There is still some much change to come. As we went from letters to email, we will continue to move from physical money to digital currency.

The dream of bitcoin as a new kind of money is true. While this has been world changing, it’s more impactful seeing the changes to our financial system. There is no going back: there is only going forward. That means, forward into the dreams of our financial future. Each morning as you wake up, fight for the dream that bitcoin has inspired in each of us.

Dream on, bitcoin, dream until the dream comes true!