Welcome to the 1st edition of my newsletter.
I’ve been working with technology since I was a kid in the late 80s first taking apart Radio Shack RC cars to learn how they worked then moving on to electronics, personal computers and the Internet.
In the late nineties I went on to learn about computer science and electronic engineering in college and then for the last 20 years I’ve been helping companies of all sizes with digital transformation.
I’ve always tried to stay ahead of Technology learning as much as I can and figuring out ways that I can apply to businesses of all types.
By staying ahead of this curve I’ve been able to work on some amazing projects across Canada working for billion dollar financial organizations central banks Lottery corporations large Global retailers and many other small and medium-sized businesses.
I came across Bitcoin around 2012 but didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to it. I came with a technology perspective and was really intrigued in the whole blockchain concept.
I didn’t have a good understanding of the history of money which is strange considering I was working at a Central Bank in Canada building technology systems for the current financial system we know today. I knew the current design but didn’t know the history or the WHY behind the many decisions that have lead us to where we are today.
I spent over 10 years working in the current legacy financial system building online banking applications, SWIFT wire applications and other large value transaction systems that underpin the current centralised banking system.
As I learned more about Bitcoin through books like The Bitcoin Standard, my eyes to the history of money opened up wide.
I finally understood the WHY to so many of the forced decisions and subsequent rules banks have to follow and it was at that moment I was orange pilled to the WHY behind Bitcoin.
For years it was by job to find and analyze the flaws in the banking processes and applications to suggest improvements and ways to digitally transform the legacy ways of doing banking.
Let me tell you… there were so many challenges to this work mainly because of all of the rules, regulations and just plain old “We’ve always done it this way…” thinking in leadership.
One of the things I learned was that all the banks and credit unions in Canada are really just extensions of the government. The Bank Act and the Credit Union Act are the rules and regulations that these institutions must follow and they all follow them exactly the same.
There is very little innovation or differentiation allowed because all of the processes are prescribed by the government. Every bank is the same except for their name, brand and maybe level of customer service.
In Canada we only have 5 banks and a couple hundred credit unions.
This is just the beginning of the challenges these institutions face.
There was a lot of ego-based leadership which never works out and what they’re left with today is a web of outdated systems that are so vulnerable to catastrophic failure.
We haven’t even started talking about the whole ability to print money problem yet either. I’ll save that for a future post.
From my perspective, our current legacy financial system is broken and being replaced but not by the same people who are running the current system. Bitcoin is by the people and for the people and will always be that. This is something that banks say but in the end, banks are the government and governments is a centralized authority ruled by politics and ideology.
For me, money shouldn’t be controlled by central authorities. It should be universal and for the people. Exactly how Bitcoin was designed.
All this made me realize how and why Bitcoin is going to revolutionize not only our financial technology systems but also our money, our energy systems, our political systems and the current financial systems.
These days I’m focused on going deeper down the rabbit hole of Bitcoin and learning everything I can to help accelerate Bitcoin adoption globally.
Last year, we launched Bit Helm, A Bitcoin-first company on a mission to help business & private property owners mine Bitcoin using renewable energy in Canada.
Follow us on Twitter for more.
My goal with this newsletter is to help others learn about Bitcoin and how it’s changing our world for the better.
Some of the broad topics I plan to cover include:
- What is Bitcoin and why should we care?
- Bitcoins relationship with energy
- Proof of Work mining
- Payments with the Lightning Network
- Bitcoin & Politics
By sharing what I’m learning along with my 25+ year perspectives from a decade long career in the legacy centralized financial system so you can join and be part of the future.
Thanks for joining along and I look forward to the journey.
Please subscribe if you haven’t already and I would be grateful if you shared this with others.
If you have questions, leave a comment below and I will do my best to help get you an answer.
Take care
Bitcoin Craig
