Bitcoins and Globalization

Invented in January of 2009, Bitcoin is the world’s first online digital crypto-currency. Rather than relying on central authorities, Bitcoin uses cryptography to control its creation and management. In today’s day and age, cryptography is heavily based on mathematical theory, which Bitcoin creators used to create computational algorithms as a means of securing electronic Bitcoin transactions. From a globalization perspective, the dramatic rise of Bitcoins is of particular importance because of the threat it poses to the centralized global monetary system, as well as central banks of governments all over the world. For the basis of this report we will examine two reputable news sources, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), and review their coverage on Bitcoins, to produce an in depth analytical analysis of the global impact that this decentralised digital currency poses.

Brief Introduction into the Background of Bitcoins

In 2009 when Bitcoins were first unveiled to the global market, it was introduced as an alternative to the failing fiscal policy of the global monetary system, which was seen as a catalyst for guiding the world into the 2008 recession. Both news outlets recognized developer or developers, Satoshi Nakamoto, as the pseudonym for the creator of the Bitcoin protocol, which is based on “a fundamental critique of the world’s monetary system” (Mendoza, 2012, para. 4). Nakamoto expanded on this critique through an online dissertation, where they summarized that the root problem with today’s conventional currencies is the massive amount of trust one must have in a financial institution in order to make the whole system work (para. 4). One must trust that their respective central bank will not debase the country’s currency, even though the history of fiat currencies is full of monumental breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold money and transfer it electronically, but they routinely...