Bitcoin was born in the aftermath of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis but its origins can be traced back to the longer-term pursuit of sound money. With increasing government deficit spending and central bank money printing globally, it seems a quaint notion to desire something as simple as the ability to save money without having it melt away to inflation.

Bitcoin is a new angle on an old idea; that a sound money standard is essential for economic prosperity. The best sound money is one built on a valuable commodity with a strictly limited supply. Historically this was gold but today Bitcoin fills the role in a way that is suitable for the internet era.

Our current savings options (banks) have time and again shown that it is no longer possible to save money and outrun the actual lived experience of inflation. Thus for many kiwis real estate has become the de facto savings vehicle in recent years, leading to a marked increase in house prices and an accompanying political imperative to sustain the current speculative housing market at the expense of new buyers.

Bitcoin represents a return for workaday New Zealanders to be able to save for their families when they would otherwise struggle to grasp even the first rung of an increasingly distant housing ladder.

Bitcoin is here to stay. The Bitcoin network has been operating without downtime since its launch in early 2009 and has gained widespread legal clarity and international and institutional recognition as a digital commodity and currency, including inclusion in New Zealand Kiwisaver funds.

Anyone can purchase fractions of a Bitcoin which has a fixed supply and even though its price discovery can at times be volatile, Bitcoin is not subject to debasement via money printing by the RBNZ nor the whims of the Australian-owned banks that dominate New Zealand. An increasing awareness of Bitcoin’s value proposition as secure savings coupled with its underlying fixed supply and other useful properties means that it has continued to trend upwards in value over the last fifteen years.

New Zealand has a growing Bitcoin community focussed on building on this new technology; from Point of Sale systems that remove the high fees charged for card payments to data centres that help balance the electricity grid and export sustainably-mined Bitcoins. This innovation is enabled by the open nature of the Bitcoin network meaning that anyone can build on it and there's an enticing possibility that Bitcoin could spearhead a new significant digital export industry for New Zealand.

Instead of waiting on the pontifications and cryptic messaging of the Government and the RBNZ, New Zealanders have the chance to opt-in to using and building upon Bitcoin to achieve their own sound money and savings future.