Beyond buying coffee with Bitcoin, beyond finance apps running on Ethereum, beyond oracles and NFTs and and blockchain-powered games there is the crypto market, an unmoderated marketplace for buying, selling, swapping, and storing cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin is the first modern cryptocurrency, and it’s an ideal example for exploring what we mean by “market.”

Bitcoin was created as a general-purpose currency to replace or augment government-issued fiat currencies. The idea was that you could go to a clothing shop and pay for your purchases by making a Bitcoin transfer as easily as swiping your credit card across the card reader. The number of purchases made with old-fashioned paper money is dwindling; it makes sense to have a new currency that takes advantage of advances in computing and networking technology, freeing consumers from the limitations of highly regulated government currencies and bank cards.