Bitcoin is an online digital currency, just like a dollar or a pound but with a few exceptions. Introduced by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009, Bitcoin engages in a peer-to-peer payment system where no intermediaries exist and goods can be securely transferred between any two people on the planet. It is associated with a heavy network of computers and the unit of currency for the Bitcoin system (appropriately called Bitcoin) can be simply acquired by joining the vast network. Bitcoin provides a fast cheap and secure transaction alternative but few are willing to take the jump for it. So the one million dollar question still lingers, is Bitcoin a secure investment?

Bitcoin is only a few years old, an interesting creation that has awed many and for the record, has attained a name in the top financial charts. Its popularity has spanned and it has led some of the top businesses like Virgin Galactic to consider it as an acceptable source of payment. Bitcoin prices increase at rates of up to 10% and continue to dominate as the alpha of the market and this has made many interested in investing in it.

Another special feature of Bitcoin is that it does not have a central bank and neither does a central government control it. It’s a global currency and its creation and existence lies behind a complex and geeky mathematical algorithm that enables it to shadow government related mishaps. Cases of political instability and government absurdities that plunge the economy down to shame and lead years of investments in a currency down the drain do not occur in the crypto-currency system. This creates a secure and friendly investment opportunity with low inflation risks.

The Downside

With an ever-amazing upside, crypto-currency also has its downs. As mentioned, this thing is still taking baby steps; and with that comes great uncertainties. Bitcoin prices are volatile; currently increasing sharply and can fluctuate at 30% to 40% in a month. The world is still surprised at its emergence and there exists very few Bitcoin holders and Bitcoin. This leads to unanswered questions and cold fear among people as investing in a new unpredictable ‘gold mine’ can yield devastating effects. Its newness brings forth lack of regulations and scares off potential investors.

The enigma surrounding the Bitcoin system is a major factor to be considered. Anything can happen and everyone participating in the Bitcoin market is on a high alert. China in December 2013 eliminated the use of Bitcoin and this led to a drastic drop to its value from $1240 to $576 in just three weeks. Programmers also determine the functionality of this global currency and many question the thought of risking their finances for some group of geeks. This prevents many from venturing into the system and increases the risk of Bitcoin investment ever so highly.

This year the value of Bitcoin has soared, even past one gold-ounce. There are also new cryptocurrencies on the market, which is even more surprising which brings cryptocoins’ worth up to more than one hundred billion. On the other hand, the longer term cryptocurrency-outlook is somewhat of a blur. There are squabbles of lack of progress among its core developers which make it less alluring as a long term investment and as a system of payment.

Bitcoin

Still the most popular, Bitcoin is the cryptocurrency that started all of it. It is currently the biggest market cap at around $41 billion and has been around for the past 8 years. Around the world, Bitcoin has been widely used and so far there is no easy to exploit weakness in the method it works. Both as a payment system and as a stored value, Bitcoin enables users to easily receive and send bitcoins. The concept of the blockchain is the basis in which Bitcoin is based. It is necessary to understand the blockchain concept to get a sense of what the cryptocurrencies are all about.

To put it simply, blockchain is a database distribution that stores every network transaction as a data-chunk called a “block.” Each user has blockchain copies so when Alice sends 1 bitcoin to Mark, every person on the network knows it.

Litecoin

One alternative to Bitcoin, Litecoin attempts to resolve many of the issues that hold Bitcoin down. It is not quite as resilient as Ethereum with its value derived mostly from adoption of solid users. It pays to note that Charlie Lee, ex-Googler leads Litecoin. He is also practicing transparency with what he is doing with Litecoin and is quite active on Twitter.

Litecoin was Bitcoin’s second fiddle for quite some time but things started changing early in the year of 2017. First, Litecoin was adopted by Coinbase along with Ethereum and Bitcoin. Next, Litecoin fixed the Bitcoin issue by adopting the technology of Segregated Witness. This gave it the capacity to lower transaction fees and do more. The deciding factor, however, was when Charlie Lee decided to put his sole focus on Litecoin and even left Coinbase, where’re he was the Engineering Director, just for Litecoin. Due to this, the price of Litecoin rose in the last couple of months with its strongest factor being the fact that it could be a true alternative to Bitcoin.

Ethereum

Vitalik Buterin, superstar programmer thought up Ethereum, which can do everything Bitcoin is able to do. However its purpose, primarily, is to be a platform to build decentralized applications. The blockchains are where the differences between the two lie. Basically, the blockchain of Bitcoin records a contract-type, one that states whether funds have been moved from one digital address to another address. However, there is significant expansion with Ethereum as it has a more advanced language script and has a more complex, broader scope of applications.

Projects began to sprout on top of Ethereum when developers began noticing its better qualities. Through token crowd sales, some have even raised dollars by the millions and this is still an ongoing trend even to this day. The fact that you can build wonderful things on the Ethereum platform makes it almost like the internet itself. This caused a skyrocketing in the price so if you purchased a hundred dollars’ worth of Ethereum early this year, it would not be valued at almost $3000.

Monero

Monero aims to solve the issue of anonymous transactions. Even if this currency was perceived to be a method of laundering money, Monero aims to change this. Basically, the difference between Monero and Bitcoin is that Bitcoin features a transparent blockchain with every transaction public and recorded. With Bitcoin, anyone can see how and where the money was moved. There is some somewhat imperfect anonymity on Bitcoin, however. In contrast, Monero has an opaque rather than transparent transaction method. No one is quite sold on this method but since some folks love privacy for whatever purpose, Monero is here to stay.

Zcash

Not unlike Monero, Zcash also aims to solve the issues that Bitcoin has. The difference is that rather than being completely transparent, Monero is only partially public in its blockchain style. Zcash also aims to solve the problem of anonymous transactions. After all, no every person loves showing how much money they actually spent on memorabilia by Star Wars. Thus, the conclusion is that this type of cryptocoin really does have an audience and a demand, although it’s hard to point out which cryptocurrency that focuses on privacy will eventually come out on top of the pile.

Bancor

Also known as a “smart token,” Bancor is the new generation standard of cryptocurrencies which can hold more than one token on reserve. Basically, Bancor attempts to make it easy to trade, manage and create tokens by increasing their level of liquidity and letting them have a market price that is automated. At the moment, Bancor has a product on the front-end that includes a wallet and the creation of a smart token. There are also features in the community such as stats, profiles and discussions. In a nutshell, the protocol of Bancor enables the discovery of a price built-in as well as a mechanism for liquidity for smart contractual tokens through a mechanism of innovative reserve. Through smart contract, you can instantly liquidate or purchase any of the tokens within the reserve of Bancor. With Bancor, you can create new cryptocoins with ease. Now who wouldn’t want that?

EOS

Another competitor of Ethereum, EOS promises to solve the scaling issue of Ethereum through the provision of a set of tools that are more robust to run and create apps on the platform.

Tezos

An alternative to Ethereum, Tezos can be consensually upgraded without too much effort. This new blockchain is decentralized in the sense that it is self-governing through the establishment of a digital true commonwealth. It facilitates the mathematical technique called formal verification and has security-boosting features of the most financially weighed, sensitive smart contract. Definitely a great investment in the months to come.

Verdict

It is incredibly hard to predict which Bitcoin in the list will become the next superstar. However, user adoption has always be one key success factor when it came to cryptocurrencies. Both Ethereum and Bitcoin have this and even if there is a lot of support from early adopters of every cryptocurrency in the list, some have yet to prove their staying power. Nonetheless, these are the ones to invest in and watch out for in the coming months.

There are a number of these Web-based Bitcoin wallets from which to choose, and they have different features, costs, and reputations to review and consider. Do you need merchant tools? Do you need currency exchange services? Do you need “cold” vault storage? Do you want multi-factor authentication? Whatever you need, there’s someone out there offering to provide it for you.

Once you’ve created an account and a wallet, how do you get Bitcoins? There are two obvious answers. First, if you already had money in one currency and wanted to convert it to a different currency, you could exchange it. Second, the same way that you sell goods or labor for your local currency, you can sell goods or labor for Bitcoin. I explored both of those options.

Bitcoin exchanges work similarly to traditional currency exchanges. There are competing firms with different appetites for various currencies, and they adjust their exchange rates accordingly. There are some with teller’s windows you can visit in person, and there are even automated ones, like ATMs, which accept currency, credit cards or Bitcoin, and dispense currency or Bitcoin. I prefer to perform my transactions online, so I researched the various online exchanges. At each, to buy Bitcoin, you must establish and fund an account and then place an order to buy or sell Bitcoin – and there’s a spread, just like securities. In these regards, it’s similar to a traditional brokerage account, but without the SIPC insurance. If the exchange gets hacked, shutters itself, or is otherwise compromised, your deposits could be temporarily inaccessible or permanently lost. This has already happened to a couple of Bitcoin exchanges, which reinforced my prior mental note to reevaluate my risks if my balances become significant.

Next I updated my business Websites to indicate that we accepted Bitcoin. I figured I could avoid the fees and the bid-ask spread if I could just get someone to pay for my goods or services at the spot price. Years later, having not earned a single Bitcoin, I returned to my study of exchanges.

If you’re not familiar with Level-II stock quotes or “depth” charts, it’s basically two lists. One list tallies and ranks in price order all the outstanding “buy” orders for a specified equity, showing the number demanded at various price levels; the other similarly ranks “sell” orders. When someone places a “market” order to buy ABC, the outstanding “sell” orders for ABC are matched in price order. Thus, if someone is selling 100 shares of ABC for $30 and someone else is selling 500 shares for $31, all 100 of the $30 shares will be consumed before a single $31 share will be sold on that exchange. Bitcoin exchanges work the same.

The Bitcoin is a cybercurrency that has attracted a lot of media attention over the last couple of years, and continues to do so. Bitcoin was set up by an anonymous group or individual in 2009, who used the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, after whom the smallest unit of Bitcoin currency is named. It is the first and arguably the most widely known cryptocurrency. Originally only of interest to the internet elite, the Bitcoin has gained wider appeal in recent years and commands respect in its own right on the foreign exchange.

How does Bitcoin work?

The finer details of how the Bitcoin works can be tricky to grasp, because it is not under central control like a conventional currency, but instead every transaction is collectively approved by a network of users. There are no coins and no notes, no bullion held in a vault, but the Bitcoin supply is finite, it will stop at 21 million. Every 10 minutes, 25 Bitcoins are found by Bitcoin “miners”, and every 4 years the number of Bitcoins released will halve until the limit is reached. This means that there will be no further release of Bitcoins after 2140.

Why do I need Bitcoin news?

The price has historically been very volatile, with significant peaks and slumps at intervals. Recently, the price of a Bitcoin leapt up more than 10-fold in just two months.In 2013 several Bitcoin Millionaires were made overnight when the value of their Bitcoin wallets increased dramatically. If you already hold some bitcoins in your digital wallet, or are thinking of dipping a toe into the water, then you really ought to keep up to speed with the Bitcoin News. Trading Bitcoin is an increasingly popular alternative or add-on to conventional foreign exchange trading, and is growing in support as more brokers take the plunge.

Despite the gradually falling rate of Bitcoin discovery, the interest in Bitcoin news continues. There is a real and constant demand to up to the minute, reliable information about its value. Bitcoin received a strong endorsement from PayPal recently which will certainly bolster confidence in its credibility as a reliable alternative to conventional bank card or cash transactions on the internet and on the high street. This might go some way to appease the critics of Bitcoin, who claim that the system used to approve or validate transactions, called Blockchain, and is unsecure and vulnerable to attack by hackers.

The Bitcoin economy is increasing at a rapid rate, as more and more startups enter the sphere and try to offer traditional services but using Bitcoins. You have everything from a marketplace of books aka Amazon style but only in Bitcoins to advertising platforms similar to Google AdSense but in the Bitcoin economy. As Bitcoin goes more mainstream, these are only going to increase in number and scope, thus presenting a wonderful opportunity to get on board with this at an early stage.

The big advantage of entering the Bitcoin economy now is that you’ll get in on this technology at the ‘innovator stage’ and you’ll have the opportunity to be one of the leaders. Businesses that operate in the current Bitcoin economy also enjoy a free publicity of their business within the Bitcoin community. Everything from gyft that accepts Bitcoins to purchase store gift cards to EVR bar that became popular in the highly competitive bar and lounge scene in New York by accepting Bitcoin as payment currency for drinks.

The advantages of being part of the Bitcoin community should also be obvious – literally zero transaction fees for trans-continental money transfers, instant transfer of money without any third-party delays and ability to reach everyone on the planet who has access to the internet.

The micro Bitcoin economy is already flourishing. Now you can do the traditional micro-tasks from agencies such as CrowdFlower on the Bitcoin platform and earn your first Bitcoins that way. If you’re a business, there are plenty of good opportunities to advertise your business to the Bitcoin audience through services like Coin URL.

On a personal finance front, it is best to keep a secure wallet online at one of the trusted wallet services and then start earning some small amounts of Bitcoin just to get a feel for how this economy functions and how you can leverage this. If you have access to both fiat and Bitcoin in a liquid market, there are plenty of opportunities where you can pay in one and receive in the other to get the most out of your business. The market is still not perfect and there are arbitrage opportunities through exchanges and goods and services.

Being part of the Bitcoin economy at this exciting stage should prove highly beneficial to your business as well. You’ll be able to reach an audience that would otherwise be very hard to woo – the people at the technological forefronts of our society.

Here is a question that comes up often: How do I choose which crypto currency to invest in – aren’t they all the same?

There is no doubt that Bitcoin has captured the lion’s share of the crypto currency (CC) market, and that is largely due to its FAME. This phenomenon is much like what is happening in national politics around the world, where a candidate captures the majority of votes based on FAME, rather than any proven abilities or qualifications to govern a nation. Bitcoin is the pioneer in this market space and continues to garner almost all of the market headlines. This FAME does not mean that it is perfect for the job, and it is fairly well known that Bitcoin has limitations and problems that need to be resolved, however, there is disagreement in the Bitcoin world on how best to resolve the problems. As the problems fester, there is ongoing opportunity for developers to initiate new coins that address particular situations, and thus distinguish themselves from the approximately 1300 other coins in this market space. Let’s look at two Bitcoin rivals and explore how they differ from Bitcoin, and from each other:

Ethereum (ETH) – The Ethereum coin is known as ETHER. The main difference from Bitcoin is that Ethereum uses “smart contracts” which are account holding objects on the Ethereum blockchain. Smart Contracts are defined by their creators and they can interact with other contracts, make decisions, store data, and send ETHER to others. The execution and services they offer are provided by the Ethereum network, all of which is beyond what the Bitcoin or any other blockchain network can do. Smart Contracts can act as your autonomous agent, obeying your instructions and rules for spending currency and initiating other transactions on the Ethereum network.

Ripple (XRP) – This coin and the Ripple network also have unique features that make it much more than just a digital currency like Bitcoin. Ripple has developed the Ripple Transaction Protocol (RTXP), a powerful financial tool that allows exchanges on the Ripple network to transfer funds quickly and efficiently. The basic idea is to place money in “gateways” where only those who know the password can unlock the funds. For financial institutions this opens up huge possibilities, as it simplifies cross-border payments, reduces costs, and provides transparency and security. This is all done with creative and intelligent use of blockchain technology.

The mainstream media is covering this market with breaking news stories almost every day, however, there is little depth to their stories… they are mostly just dramatic headlines.

The Wild West show continues…

The 5 stocks crypto/blockchain picks are up an average of 109% since December 11/17. The wild swings continue with daily gyrations. Yesterday we had South Korea and China the latest to try to shoot down the boom in cryptocurrencies.

On Thursday, South Korea’s justice minister, Park Sang-ki, sent global bitcoin prices temporarily plummeting and virtual coin markets into turmoil when he reportedly said regulators were preparing legislation to ban cryptocurrency trading. Later that same day, the South Korea Ministry of Strategy and Finance, one of the main member agencies of the South Korean government’s cryptocurrency regulation task force, came out and said that their department does not agree with the premature statement of the Ministry of Justice about a potential cryptocurrency trading ban.

While the South Korean government says cryptocurrency trading is nothing more than gambling, and they are worried that the industry will leave many citizens in the poor house, their real concern is a loss of tax revenue. This is the same concern every government has.

China has grown into one of the world’s biggest sources of cryptocurrency mining, but now the government is rumoured to be looking into regulating the electric power used by the mining computers. Over 80% of the electrical power to mine Bitcoin today comes from China. By shutting down miners, the government would make it harder for Bitcoin users to verify transactions. Mining operations will move to other places, but China is particularly attractive due to very low electricity and land costs. If China follows through with this threat, there will be a temporary loss of mining capacity, which would result in Bitcoin users seeing longer timers and higher costs for transaction verification.

This wild ride will continue, and much like the internet boom, we will see some big winners, and eventually, some big losers. Also, similar to the internet boom, or the uranium boom, it is those who get in early who will prosper, while the mass investors always show up at the end, buying in at the top.

Stay Tuned!

Investors from around the globe are trying to cash in on the volatile Forex market, by trading with the crypto-currency, Bitcoin. Well, it is quite easy to get started with online trading, but it is important for you to know that there are risks involved that you cannot afford to overlook.

As with any of the speculative or exchange markets, Bitcoin trading is also a dicey venture, which can possibly cost you a lot of money, especially if you don’t get it right. Therefore, it is essential for you to know about the risks involved, before deciding to get started with it.

If you are a newbie, who is interested in trading with Bitcoin, then you will need to first understand the basics of trade and investing.

Avoid the common errors that new traders generally tend to make

Invest wisely

Any kind of financial investment can bring losses, instead of profits. Similarly, with the highly unstable Bitcoin market, you can expect both, profits and losses. It is all about making the right decisions at the right time.

Most of the beginners tend to lose money by making the wrong decisions that are generally driven by greed and poor analytical skills. Experts say that you should not venture into trading, if you are not ready to lose money. Basically, such an approach helps you in coping up mentally for the worst possibilities.

Diversify the portfolio

First, successful traders diversify their portfolios. Risk exposure increases if most of your funds are allocated for a single asset. It becomes harder for you to cover the losses from other assets. You cannot afford to lose more money than you invested, so avoid placing more funds on limited assets. It will help you sustain the negative trades to quite an extent.

Secondly, putting in more cash than you can afford, will also cloud your sound decision making abilities. In most cases, you will be compelled to opt for ‘desperate selling’ when market declines a little. Rather than holding through the market dip, the investor who has over-invested on the trade, is bound to panic. The person will feel the urge sell off the holding for a low price, in an attempt to lessen the losses.

You will also be losing more cash, when market recovers. It is because you will have to buy the same holding back, but at higher price.

Set goals – Emotions make you blind

Goal setting for each transaction is vital when you trade Bitcoin. It helps you stay level-headed even in the extremely volatile conditions. Therefore, you will need to first determine the price to stop your losses.

The same rule also applies for profits, especially if you let your greed take over. The benefit of setting goals is that you can easily prevent making the decisions based on emotions.

Instead, you should work towards improving your skills for reading the charts and conducting the market analysis. It is also advisable for new traders to close their losing positions in 24 hours, so as to avoid paying the recurring interest.

When you decide to trade in BTC, you need to know that there are many options available for people looking for Bitcoin exchanges. However, when you choose this investment avenue, you need to get informed before you start. The process of transferring money to an exchange is not always easy and it can in fact be an arduous process that requires plenty of thought and planning. Bitcoins are not always easy to acquire and you need to rate things objectively before choosing an exchange.

Consider liquidity

Instead of choosing an exchange simply because of the beautiful looking website, you need to consider some important characteristics such as the liquidity. The fact that the market is based on people looking to buy or sell the currency, means that you need to consider how much liquidity an exchange has. This affects the ability to sell effectively without a significant change in the price. Remember that the liquidity is affected by the number of buyers and sellers available.

Think about fees

The buying and selling process costs money, which is the incentive that exchanges have to run as businesses. However, unlike with the buying of stocks or bonds, these exchanges usually charge a percentage. This process is different from discount brokerages that most investors use that usually charge fees based on a flat rate. This means that over time, buying and selling can get quite costly. It is a good idea to talk to bitcoin brokers about the best options before you start.

Consider accessibility

The risk of attack on exchanges is a reality that traders have to consider. This is usually done as a way to profit from ensuing price swings. The bitcoin tends to be volatile, and any attack that leads to a price hike can profit the malicious hackers. This is something that has affected even the top exchanges. A host tracker is a tool that can measure the accessibility of a site. When making the decision, you need to be informed about the risk of the exchange being attacked.

When you make the decision to buy, remember that the different exchanges are not created equal and you should be careful when making the choice. Think about the different considerations and consider your special circumstances so that you can choose the best exchange for you. Fortunately, there are many online resources that make it easy to carry out research and you can get all the information that you need.

The charismatic cryptocurrency and the numerous thoughts that crop up in the minds of the onlookers often surround few obvious questions – how does it come into being and what about its circulation? The answer, however, is straightforward. Bitcoins have to be mined, in order to make the cryptocurrency exist in the Bitcoin market. The mysterious creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, envisioned a technique to exchange the valuable cryptocurrencies online, by doing away with the necessity for any centralized institution. For Bitcoins, there’s an alternative way to hold the necessary records of the transaction history of the entire circulation, and all this is managed via a decentralized manner.

The ledger that facilitates the process is known as the “blockchain”. The essence of this ledger might require tons of newsprint for appearing regularly at all popular Bitcoin news. Blockchain expands every minute, existing on the machines involved in the huge Bitcoin network. People may question the validity, even authenticity, of these transactions and their recordings into Blockchain. This too is however justified, through the process of Bitcoin mining. Mining enables creation of new Bitcoin and compiling transactions to the ledger. Mining essentially entails solving of complex mathematical calculations, and the miners employ immense computing power to solve it. The individual or ‘pool’ that solves the puzzle, places the subsequent block and wins a reward too. And, how mining can avoid double-spending? Almost every 10 minutes, outstanding transactions are mined into a block. So, any inconsistency or illegitimacy is completely ruled out.

For Bitcoins, mining is not spoken of in a traditional sense of the term. Bitcoins are mined by utilizing cryptography. A hash function termed as “double SHA-256” is employed. But how difficult is it to mine Bitcoins? This can be another query. This depends a lot on the effort and computing power being employed into mining. Another factor worth mentioning is the software protocol. For every 2016 blocks, difficulty entailed in mining of Bitcoins is adjusted by itself simply to maintain the protocol. In turn, the pace of block generation is kept consistent. A Bitcoin difficulty chart is a perfect measure to demonstrate the mining difficulty over time. The difficulty level adjusts itself to go up or down in a directly proportional manner, depending on the computational power, whether it’s being fuelled or taken off. As the number of miners rise, percentage of profits deserved by the participants diminish, everyone ends up with smaller slices of the profits.

Having individual economies and communities, cryptocurrencies like Dogecoin, Namecoin or Peercoin, are called Altcoins. These are alternatives to Bitcoin. Almost like Bitcoins, these ‘cousins’ do have a huge fan-following and aficionados who are keen to take a deep plunge into the huge ocean and begin to mine it. Algorithms utilized for Altcoin mining are either SHA-256 or Scrypt. Several other innovative algorithms exist too. Ease, affordability and simplicity can render it feasible to mine Altcoins on a PC or by employing special mining software. Altcoins are a bit ‘down to earth’ compared to Bitcoins, yet transforming them into big bucks is a little difficult. Cryptocurrency buffs can just hope, if some of them could witness the equivalent astronomical fame!

It was my senior year of high school and one of our teachers called us in a room full of new computers. We were instructed to sit down and “surf the web.”

“Surf the web?” What did that even mean? At the time I did not live anywhere close to the beach and couldn’t really understand this concept of web surfing. It was clunky and pages were slow to load. There was no way that this was going to be useful. I went back to the library later that day during study hall and read the newspaper. You know, the ones you see in hotel lobbies and occasionally outside of restaurants.

All kidding aside, when people are used to doing something a certain way for so long it truly becomes part of who they are. I have operations management experience and every time I attempted to change the process or way of doing something to make it more efficient I was typically met with resistance.

Some people are far more married to certain ideologies than others. We see it everywhere. I see it with the older generation at church not liking the newer music. Or, for example, the National League baseball purists despising the idea of the designated hitter. How about even simple things like when Facebook or Twitter changes the user interface? Don’t mess with my timeline! LOL.

Why then should it be any different for Bitcoin or any cryptocurrency? I talk to people every day who are educated and successful and yet still can’t wrap their heads around cryptocurrency. To me it is like explaining how to surf the web to people in 1994.

For centuries people have had it ingrained in their brains that money issued by the government meant it had value.

Fiat currency (money issued by a government – USD, Euro, Ruble, etc) has this connotation behind it that because the government printed this it MUST be of value. While it is true that our dollars have value, most people think it is because it is backed by something. As a society we have decided that shiny minerals we dig up from the ground are “valuable” and therefore so is our money.

When economies are humming along and governments aren’t overbearing and people have a relative “trust” in them then yes, fiat currency works quite well. What happens when we tip that scale and things don’t go so well? Economists have varying opinions on that, but most of the time governing bodies will step in and try to stimulate the economy. This is done by manipulating the economy via tactics such as lowering interest rates or quantitative easing. Governments love to turn on the printing press when things go bad.

These types of scenarios can lead to distrust, or far worse. Recessions can turn into even bigger problems such as price controls or food shortages. Just ask the people of Venezuela who are protesting in the streets on a daily basis. This is because their government backed Bolivar now has seen triple digit inflation and it’s not even worth the paper it’s printed on. Let that sink in.

The distrust of centralized banks, governments and corporations has led to people seeking financial refuge elsewhere. It can be incredibly difficult and costly to move money around the world as well. I used to manage banks and the process was tedious and required many eyeballs on it for verification purposes.

Blockchain technology is changing all that. It is completely decentralized meaning that no one President, Dictator, government or corporation can control it. The online digital accounting ledger known as the blockchain maintains trust and multiple persons nearly instantly verifying transactions for each other. People are financially incentivised to do so. It’s a genius peer to peer operation that relies on people’s greed to verify each transaction. Because of this, blockchain transactions are also the safest and most secure transactions ever invented.

What the internet did for information, blockchain technology is doing for transactions. Bitcoin is not backed by any shiny material in the ground, but by something far greater. The lack of trust in traditional fiat currency is causing people from all over the world to move their money into cryptocurrencies. It is a secure and relatively easy method of payment. I can send Bitcoin to anyone in the world for almost no fee at all and they receive it instantaneously. They can keep it in Bitcoin or they can instantly trade it on an exchange back into the local currency of their choice.

Not only that, but merchants around the world are starting to take notice and many are now accepting Bitcoin as a method of payment themselves. If I owned a store, I would be BEGGING people to pay me in Bitcoin. Those who accepted Bitcoin since the start of 2017 have now TRIPLED their profit.

And it is only getting started. Right now only about 1% of the population is confident in conducting regular transactions with Bitcoin. Imagine when that number moves to 3%. Then to 10%.

What many people don’t realize is that the more people that jump into cryptocurrency the more value it will have. This is because the amount of Bitcoin that will ever be created is FINITE. And you can’t have a Ponzi scheme with a finite resource. That number happens to be 21,000,000. That’s it. Once that happens there will never be another Bitcoin created again.

Because we have 7 billion people on the planet and probably only 15 million people invested in cryptocurrency, there will come a day that 1 Bitcoin alone will be more than enough to retire on.

Now you can certainly continue singing those same songs. In fact, I like the occasional hymn now and again, but with more guitar. You can continue to fight something you don’t fully understand or dismiss it as a fad while Fortune 500 companies and governments are starting to realize it’s not.

Let me close with this. Eventually we all put down that newspaper in study hall and began to catch up on the news and other interests we have by surfing this web. You can’t argue that or you wouldn’t be reading this article!

Thank you for reading this and, as always, I would love to hear from you.