Intriguing Bits of Bitcoins Facts
There had been much noise in the techno-finance world about Bitcoins in the recent past. What is Bitcoin, and why are there lots of talks about it?
Bitcoin, spelled with a capital B, refers to the system, while the one starting in a lowercase b refers to the actual currency. Bitcoin is a digital currency, which means transactions do not involve the use of bills. You can use bitcoins in exchange for goods and services in a completely virtual nature. If you’re confused or intrigued, here are more remarkable Bitcoins facts to enlighten you about this revolutionary form of currency service.
The concept of Bitcoins was invented by Satoshi Nakamoto, a pseudonym, in 2009. Nobody knows who Nakamoto is and the true identity that only very few Bitcoin users are said to have had minimal conversations with him. In April 2011, Nakamoto disappeared from the Internet. Fast Company and The New Yorker launched investigations, but the results were all inconclusive.
Bitcoin’s price exceeded $60,000 in April 2021, setting a new record and coinciding with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase going public. This high followed a meteoric rise in value in the early months of 2021, after exceeding $20,000 for the first time in December 2020. Today, Bitcoin’s value is approximately $43,000.
One of the most significant Bitcoins facts supporting its incredible popularity is the trust given by tech-savvy savers worldwide. Analysts believe that savers prefer to put their money in an open-source piece of software rather than in a commercial bank. Many people are uncomfortable with bank policies, assuming they only give their money away to a broken global banking system.
Bitcoin does not pass thru the Central Bank or any regulating federal clearinghouse. Instead, parties transacting bitcoins use a decentralized ledger. Every purchase using bitcoins as an exchange is entered on the ledger. It means all transactions are made directly from wallet to wallet. There are no intermediaries; thus, there are no transaction fees.
Traders store bitcoins in a Bitcoin wallet with their own identity like an account number. It is possible to create as many wallets as you want to transact anonymously. A wallet is applied for or processed in an online service.
New Bitcoins are created through mining, a computer power processing transaction. New cryptographic problems are entered on the Bitcoin ledger and are mined when discovered by solving the blocks. According to Moore’s Law, every successful mining is given a reward that decreases with time. Mining maintains the reliability of the ledger, which is designed not to go over 21 million coins.
Every transaction is fast, safe, and anonymous. It barely takes a minute to complete trading, and there’s no possibility of hacking because all entries are encrypted. There is no need for personal information. A complete transaction stays registered in the network.
The law of supply and demand dictates Bitcoin’s price. Supply is predictable, and it automatically adjusts the difficulty level to solve a block to influence the number of miners. A block always gives the same amount of bitcoins rewards but decreases when it reaches the 21 million ceiling.
Final Thoughts
Is bitcoin for real? Only time will tell, but definitely, it is changing the world and the lives of millions of people. While it is a complex math thing for the uninitiated, the concept of Bitcoins is understandable to investors willing to put their time at stake to mine for bitcoin gold. Hopefully, these bitcoins facts can help you decide whether or not to join the Bitcoins bandwagon. If you believe you’ve got nothing much to lose, hop on in before you miss the last trip to financial opportunity. But, if you’re a naysayer, you might want to wait for the uproar to die down and see what happens next.