Usually, there has always been a way or two to stop something that we (humans) have built.
We can stop a car by applying brakes. We can stop a television by cutting off its power supply.
Bitcoin - being built by human(s) - can’t be stopped. Why is it an exception?
There are a couple of things that make Bitcoin the only man-made unstoppable thing in the world.
BITCOIN IMITATES MYCELIUM
Mycelium is the underground network of fungi.
It’s called the Internet of Nature, spreads all around the world. This is what connects all the plant life on the Earth with each other. It looks something like this:
Trees can’t survive without the underground network of fungi - called mycelium.
Just like mycelium, Bitcoin is the Internet of money. It spreads around the globe.
There’s something called as Bitcoin node.
A node is simply a copy of the entire history of transactions that have ever occurred on the Bitcoin network. Anyone in the world - with a simple computer - can run its node. As of now, there are tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of nodes running around the world.
These nodes audit every single transaction made on the network. They keep the network going.
In order to kill Bitcoin, one has to destroy all the nodes around the world all at once, and keep them destroyed forever. As long as there’s at least one computer running its node, Bitcoin can’t be killed.
Even if someone found a way to do this, the network can be revived as soon as someone starts running its node again. The network will start operating from where it left off.
On top of this, Bitcoin node can also hide behind encrypted services so that no one can know the location where it’s running. If hunters can locate their prey, how are they going to kill it?
There’s absolutely no way to kill something that can’t be located.
NO MINIMUM ENERGY REQUIRED
Again, almost everything around us requires minimum amount of energy to operate.
Our bodies require a minimum amount of energy to keep functioning. Bitcoin doesn’t.
It can keep going on whatever energy is provided to it.
There’s no minimum energy barrier for Bitcoin to keep functioning. If only one node is running around the world, Bitcoin’s energy requirements would diminish to an extent that the energy required to power that last node is all Bitcoin needs to stay alive.
Since nobody can locate all the nodes - even if they do, only one node can keep the network going - and nobody can starve Bitcoin of the energy it needs, nobody can stop it.
It’s that simple.
FINAL THOUGHT….
Never stop - inspired by Bitcoin.