Bitcoin can make you, but can it break you too?
Over time, people are getting more into cryptocurrencies because of their rise and how their values are increasing day by day. But as we gain some knowledge about this growing decentralized currency, we often ask ourselves.
Is it worth it?
Is bitcoin going to change the meaning of the word “Currency” in our minds
1.What Is Bitcoin
A virtual currency that doesn’t exist in physical form and doesn’t hold any specific origin, created by a person named “Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009” is called bitcoin.
This means Bitcoin is a digital coin that holds value from the internet to the internet. It is mined using electricity, a computer and an internet connection. You can buy it, sell it or use it to purchase anything, but the transaction can only exist from computer to computer.
Any central authority or bank doesn’t hold any intrusion in its system.
2. Bitcoin Mining And Blockchain
Have you ever wondered, the mathematics you and I have been studying, what’s the use of it?
Here it comes in handy.
Bitcoin mining takes place when miners solve mathematical cryptographic puzzles on their computers by using some specialized chips. Also, this mining confirms the transactions on its network and confirms the authority of coins.
Firstly, bitcoins were mined with normal computers that slows down their mining, now they use mining pools which makes it faster to mine.
Every cryptocurrency has digital ledgers that hold information of their mining, transaction and supply, these ledgers are blockchains. With the name you might come up with its meaning, blocks forms where a specific person’s ledger is kept and chains are formed between those ledgers to make them associated in their network. Blockchains are open to everyone, you and I can access them and view their transactions from our desktop easily
3. Peer-To-Peer
Now that we know it is a decentralized currency, Let’s see how it transacts.
Bitcoin uses peer to peer network, every buyer has a digital wallet (there are different wallets for holding bitcoins and cryptocurrencies) and a key (if the key is stolen you can’t do anything with your bitcoin unless you transact them urgently in another wallet) to use for the transaction. The transactions will take place when you use the key to open the wallet, digitally sign the deal using cryptography and send it to the bitcoin network for transaction verification. When it is verified, it’ll be updated on the blockchain for everyone to know.
4. Is Bitcoin Mining Illegal?
It depends on the origin of your country, some countries banned mining and use of bitcoin because it influenced the country’s central assets. No central authority is allowed to take any part in its network, which makes few countries ban cryptocurrencies but still, a lot of major countries are accepting it like China and the USA.
5. What Affects Bitcoin Price
The prices depend on demand and supply in the exchanges. If there are more people buying it, the prices will automatically go up but if the buying pressure goes down prices will also go down. No one can actually manipulate the count.
6. Employment In It
Now that the cryptocurrency is growing and it holds the future to a greater extent, some universities started courses specifically for bitcoin and cryptocurrency technologies, like Princeton University is offering a complete degree in it. So logically, there are more job opportunities in this career, people are looking for freelancers or full-time employees. You can work as
- Junior full stack developer
- Blockchain legal assistant
- Account executive
- Financial analyst
And a lot more, which offers a great career for the 20th-century youth and stable financial aspects.
7. Bitcoin Future
Bitcoin was first mined on Jan 3, 2009. Satoshi Nakamoto hooked the total number of bitcoin with 21 million, meaning only 21 million bitcoins can be mined. This number is decided by encoding Bitcoin’s source code and network’s node. With the passing time, its halving is becoming more difficult which now takes 4 years in splitting. So researchers say, with this rate, the last coin will be mined in 2140.
8. Investing In Bitcoin
A few days ago, when I was scrolling down my tweeter feed, I saw a post “Who is gonna sell their coin?”(because of a little fall in its value). I scrolled comments and there was loads and loads of comments that states
It’s buying time, not selling.
This might clear out the concept of investing in this particular cryptocurrency.
With the digital marketing growth, I and a lot of bitcoin supporters believe that bitcoin is going to live until the last human being exists. People who invested in it have gone from some $1000 to $M in a few years. Exactly this rise brings me to this coin. So let not one-time fall tell you, it is not good to Invest. There’s rise to every fall.
9. Can It Be Converted To Cash?
Oh yes, You can. How can someone buy it when he/she has never had it before? They will buy it with money and there you can sell it for money. Some platforms use bitcoins as a transaction of buying and selling any physical property. Similarly, there are platforms where you can sell them for money. There’s this app called Spare, which uses a real short time to convert your digital coin into a physical coin. Also, some banks are accepting bitcoin and the number is increasing day by day. So converting it into cash is no big deal.
10. Should You Buy It?
I guess it is worth trying. The Crypto market is so big and it is not going to fail anywhere in near future, every year there are more cryptocurrencies and the biggest is Bitcoin. So are you going to buy it?
11. How To Buy
To buy bitcoin one must have a bank account, debit card or credit card, then there are some exchanges and brokers who offer sales and purchases of bitcoins we can contact them, or we can also buy from websites or wallets. Some platforms are
- etoro
- Uphold
- BlockFi
- Crypto.com
- Robinhood
- How To Use It?
I didn’t know how to write until my mother make me hold my pencil. The same goes with Bitcoin, we can’t know how to play with it until we hold a wallet. Yeah! This play starts with creating a wallet, and the important part purchase a coin for the wallet and you are good to use it in tradings with buying from other’s wallets to sending to other’s wallets.
12. The Risk Associated With Its Investment
Wherever there’s a thing that can make anyone rise there will be risks. Because if one can’t earn it, he will steal it. This statement is proving itself here too. There are a lot of risks associated with its investment.
13. Security Risk
From mining to storing, everything is done in computer on pools. Even though there are frequent measures that miners take but still we can’t underestimate a hacker. Every month some accounts get hacked, researchers are trying to lower the rate with new software.
14. Fraud Risks
This is a digital currency so a lot of scammers are infatuating the mining or the transactions. No legal actions can be taken over if the money is fraudulently earned or stolen or illegally gotten transacted to hide their assets from taxation authorities. Also, some websites and persons are frauding the mass by selling a single coin to multiple people. Therefore, you must have full knowledge before investing in any cryptocurrency.
15. Irreversible Transactions
Any transaction that is finalized can’t be reversed, you can’t get back your coin if you click mistakenly on the sell button or is sent to the wrong recipient’s wallet. You can’t even cancel the transaction which makes it riskier. There are a lot of cases that reported their wrong transactions but are unable to do anything.
For this reason, you have to make sure that the details and amount you selected are correct before clicking the confirm button.
16. Criticism
Bitcoin is majorly criticized for its large consumption of electricity thus major water wastage. It only consumes energy as much as a whole nation consumes which is making it an environmental foe. With more energy consumption, the pollution comes hands in hands and disturbing carbon and oxygen levels. Even its transactions use great energy to take place.
17. Can Satoshi Nakamoto Affect Bitcoin?
We don’t know who Satoshi Nakamoto is, so we can’t predict if he will come to screen what will happen. There is a chance that if he is a well-known personality he might make it fall, similarly, he can also give a boom to its rise. Future can’t be predicted right.
Conclusion
With all of the study up, we know bitcoin is the future but it is also disturbing the future. But I believe every evolution in technology somehow changes or disturbs nature, it’s the same with cryptocurrency. Great names are behind it like Elon Musk, he is its biggest investor and he claims “He owns Bitcoin”. After all this splash all I can say is Bitcoin Is A Worthy Coin.
