Building the Machine Payable Web

A new way to think about Bitcoin is a spendable resource between different machines. Looking at Bitcoin in this new way opens up a bunch of fresh ideas. Machines could pay with digital currency to gain access to vital resources or services. We can call this the machine-payable web, where machines transact with other machines for Bitcoin.

This is the kinda stuff that keeps me awake at night. Imagine a driver-less taxi cab paying for it's own gas or a delivery drone paying for it's own electricity after every drop-off. The possibilities are endless.

This might really change how the world works on a grand scale. Basically, any device or app can act independently as an economic agent on this new machine web. There could be a whole new economy of autonomous devices, robots, computers transacting with each other. At that stage, We might even start talking about machine rights vs. human rights.

WOW! The future is happening fast. The price of Bitcoin would go to the Moon if a whole new class of user was created. Maybe in the future, more machines will be buying more Bitcoins than humans.

Imagine 2 billion machines start buying and trading Bitcoin. This causes 1 billion Chinese to buy Bitcoin. Now look, 4 billion new machines are coming online and buying Bitcoin. This causes 1 billion Indians to buy Bitcoin. Whoa, 8 billion new machines were just created and they need Bitcoin!!! This causes a freenzy of 2 billion "Rest of World" citizens to buy Bitcoin. OMG... 16 billion new machines were just created and they need Bitcoin to function!!!

Does this sound crazy to you?? 34 Billion Bitcoin buyers trying to buy 21 million Bitcoin? What would the price of Bitcoin be at that point? We all know a Bitcoin can be divided into a million "satoshi" units. But, what if that is not enough? What if a "satoshi" becomes worth more than a penny? Another hard fork might be needed to add more decimal points (8 places might not be enough).

This might be the "KILLER" app everybody in the Bitcoin world has been waiting for! 21 inc is the company trying to build the machine-payable web today. Let's see what happens!

Check out this talk by Balaji S. Srinivasan (CEO of 21, Inc.)

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Sincerely,

Michael Matthews
^{Follow me on Twitter}