November 19, 2018
by Sharon Moran
Piper Jaffray, an investment bank and asset management company, released the Holiday 2018 report that showed U.S. teens prefer either cryptocurrency or V-bucks, the in-game virtual currency for the video game Fortnite instead of cash or gift cards.
CCN had this to say about the findings, “If teenagers now prefer to use cryptocurrencies and other digital assets in lieu of cash and gift cards, that means that the volume of crypto assets in everyday circulation is only set to grow.”
This growing popularity among teenagers demonstrates an important point that Satoshi Nakamoto referenced in a message to The Cryptography Mailing List in January 2009. In a response to Dustin D. Trammell in which Satoshi encouraged Trammell to mine bitcoin “It might make sense to get some in case it catches on.” Satoshi then followed up with, “If enough people think the same way, that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.” (By the way, I’ve copied that identically the way that Satoshi originally wrote it, so I didn’t add the needed hyphen.)
There have been a growing number of pop cultural references to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in recent months. And with the 10th anniversary of the Bitcoin genesis block approaching in early January, there is probably not a more appropriate time for increasing interest in cryptocurrency, particularly from a demographic on the brink of adulthood. This increased interest can perpetuate even more interest, demonstrating the self-fulfilling prophecy of cryptocurrency.
We’ve certainly progressed further in the last decade than Satoshi might have predicted. From that same referenced message to the cryptography mailing list, Satoshi speculated, “I would be surprised if 10 years from now we’re not using electronic currency in some way, now that we know a way to do it that won’t inevitably get dumbed down when the trusted third party gets cold feet.”
Notice his use of the term electronic currency when referring to bitcoin, and not cryptocurrency. He wrote this message in January 2009, several months before a bitcoin.org forum user coined the term and Satoshi and early bitcoin developer Martti Malmi, agreed that the term was a good way to describe bitcoin. If you want a more complete description of how they arrived at this result, I urge you to read, Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money by Nathaniel Popper.
