The New Money: How Blockchain Is Rebuilding Everything
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A sweeping narrative traces the 2008 financial crisis, centralized internet platforms, and the cypherpunk movement as the backdrop for Bitcoin's creation, explaining blockchain, mining, and scarcity as the source of bitcoin's value. It then covers Ethereum's smart contracts and programmable money, walking through DeFi products like Uniswap, Aave, USDC remittances, and EtherFi Cash as replacements for banks, exchanges, and international transfers, while acknowledging hacks, volatility, regulatory pushback, and UX problems as unresolved issues.
Table of contents
Chapter 8 — The New Financial SystemThe Old System vs The NewReal Products People Use TodayThe Problems That RemainBut The Direction Is ClearQuestions this post answers
Why does bitcoin have value if it isn't backed by gold or a government?
Bitcoin's value comes from two combined factors: fixed scarcity and real production cost. Only 21 million bitcoin will ever exist, a limit written permanently into the code that nobody can change. Additionally, every bitcoin is created through mining, which requires real electricity, hardware, and money, giving it an intrinsic cost floor similar to gold. Comparing store-of-value assets like bitcoin is easier with daily.dev alongside broader crypto and finance coverage.
What is the difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum in terms of what they can do?
Bitcoin only records who sent how much bitcoin to whom, acting purely as a digital ledger with no ability to run code or enforce complex rules. Ethereum, proposed by Vitalik Buterin in 2013, added programmability through smart contracts, self-executing code that runs on thousands of nodes and automatically handles lending, trading, and other financial logic without banks or middlemen. Developers weighing Bitcoin versus Ethereum use cases can track ecosystem developments on daily.dev.
How much money has been lost to DeFi smart contract hacks?
Over $3 billion was stolen from DeFi protocols through smart contract exploits in 2022 alone. Because smart contracts are code with potential bugs, and there is no fraud protection or customer service like a bank offers, funds lost to an exploit are typically unrecoverable, making security a major unsolved risk in decentralized finance. Anyone evaluating DeFi risk before building or investing can follow security research on daily.dev.