Oleg Andreev, software designer and security developer, in an article published on his personal blog, compared bitcoin with various assets, technologies and economic and social phenomena, and examined their differences and similarities. In his article, Andrew first outlines the similarities and then the differences between bitcoins and each of those phenomenon.
1. Cash: Bitcoin is like cash. Bitcoin transaction is non-refundable and you are fully responsible for it.
If you lose or forget your wallet private key, you will lose your asset.
You can give bitcoin to someone to keep it for you, but like a bank you have to trust these people and make sure they do not run away with your money.
2. Gold: Bitcoin is like gold. Bitcoin is not generated by itself and there is a limited amount of it.
This value is scattered in four dimensions of space-time (three dimensions related to space and one dimension related to time) and, of course, it is more scattered in time.
To get bitcoins, someone has to give them to you or mine them.
Bitcoin is as brilliant as gold, not physically, but technologically.
3. Bank: Bitcoin is like a bank. In Bitcoin, like banks, we deal with computers, databases, and transactions. The database stores the history of all incoming and outgoing payments; That is, who sends how much asset to whom.
Everything here is digital.There is no treasury room for storing gold and safe box, only some data is kept in a “General Office”. This is the structural similarity of Bitcoin with the bank.
4. monopoly game money: Bitcoin is similar to the currency in the monopoly game. Like monopoly game, bitcoins are intangible chips that have no value and people value them because they can be used in the game. The same is true about gold and any other currency.