Will Bitcoin Take Over? How I Made Money Off Bitcoin + Misconceptions
Bitcoin has been a concept for many years, used as a payment in the form of crypto-currency. Although there are many other forms of cryto-currency, bitcoin, launched within January of 2009, gained great popularity in 2017. Aspects such as social media played a huge role within the success of bitcoin as viral marketing was implemented, increasing the demand for this currency, and therefore increasing its value .
So, What Is a Bitcoin?
A Bitcoin is not a physical thing. A Bitcoin is essentially a piece of data that is stored within a ‘digital wallet’ in a smartphone or computer. Bitcoins can be gathered through a process of Bitcoin ‘mining’. This is where specialised computers solve computational problems which allows them to chain together blocks of transactions and form something called a ‘block chain’. Once a Bitcoin is obtained, it can be traded on a virtual market for essentially ‘real world money’.
The implications of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin as a form of currency is currently very unstable in terms of value.
At this point in time, Bitcoin is currently worth £7,252.69 ($9,496.23), however it had reached a maximum value of £19,650 ($25,725) in December of 2017, whilst subsequently crashing to £3,100 ($4,058) in December of 2018.
Additionally, Bitcoin can be used to exchange money without being linked to personal identity. Although they can be tracked, though methods such as using TOR (a search engine) or Bitcoin mixing, it becomes increasingly difficult to track the transactions of Bitcoins. This made the currency highly valuable within places such as the dark web, as a sense of anonymity could be provided.
Currently, Bitcoin has been seen to increase in price, leading to people investing within Bitcoin in hope for it to become more widely used and increase in value. Within our modern society, Bitcoin can currently be used within many different websites, and as its social awareness increases, we might be inclined to use Bitcoin as a casual form of currency.
Published at Fri, 31 Jan 2020 00:51:28 +0000
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