For a long time now, we have been surrounded by virtual currencies and the rate at which its uses cases in day-to-day life are increasing is something that was never really anticipated and one of the major contributors to this huge success is the cryptocurrency industry.
The crypto world has been more than successful in luring in potential investors from all across the globe and has managed to make a name for itself in the global marketplace as well. Not just that, the said industry has had a surge in its overall growth and popularity recently, thus helping it to reach greater heights!
Having said that, I believe, most of you are already familiar with the basics of the industry but, if for some reason that is still not the case, let me help you with that first.
To begin with, cryptocurrencies as the name suggests is nothing but a form of online or digital currencies that can easily be made use of for a variety of purposes including the purchase and sale of goods and services as well as for the purpose of trade and exchange over cryptocurrency exchanges available over the web.
In technical terminology, cryptocurrency is a blockchain-based platform that is known to be decentralized to its very core. Being decentralized, the crypto world becomes more than capable of stepping outside the overall control and jurisdiction of central authorities and can work freely without any unnecessary government interferences as well.
In addition to this, when the industry was first introduced there were not many currencies to choose from and honestly, not many people were looking to be a part of it either as people back then were very skeptical with respect to the return on investments they could expect as well as the safety of their money too.
On the contrary, looking around today, it feels almost unreal to see how far the industry has managed to come, having pools of currencies available today for investors to choose from, with newer ones coming in with each passing day and tons of new investors joining in every hour.
Speaking of a lot of currencies available today in the marketplace, According to experts at https://immediate-connect.org/ some of the most popular ones worth investing in includes Ethereum, Polkadot, Binance Coin, Bitcoin, PancakeSwap, Dogecoin, Cardano, EverGrow Coin as well as Baby Doge to name just a few of course.
Also, it is worth noting that, some of the major contributing factors for this extraordinary success of the industry include its negligible response time, the convenience it offers, ease of use, portability, intuitive nature, high-profit margins, real-time updates as well as the volatility of course.
Being volatile, it is important for you to be aware of the fact that, it is not always possible to predict the price changes and act accordingly as the price fluctuations in the crypto marketplace are almost immediate, thus leaving no time to plan. Therefore, whenever dealing in online currencies, keep in mind that, if the industry is providing you with an opportunity to earn huge profits and make quick money, if not done right, you could also end up having significantly huge losses as well.
Not just that, as per the chatter amongst some of the leading experts on the field, it has come to our notice that, crypto is rapidly progressing towards completely revolutionizing the global payment system and from where I stand, it looks like it has already started to do so as many merchants and businesses have started accepting crypto as an official mode of payment from their customers.
Now that you have a brief backstory about the crypto world, you will be able to have a much better understanding of what we have with us today, Bitcoin. To know more, I suggest you read further!
Everything to know about Bitcoin (BTC)
Bitcoin or as commonly referred to as BTC is simply the world’s first widely adopted cryptocurrency. If you have heard of cryptocurrencies in general, you must have heard about Bitcoin too because this is the reputation that the platform has managed to make for itself globally and this shows the amount of success it has witnessed over the years.
Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer virtual currency, which means that all transactions on the network happen directly between equal and independent network participants, and that too without the need for any intermediary to permit or facilitate them. In other words, Bitcoin is one such currency that was created with a focus on allowing online payments to be sent directly from one party to another, without going through any financial institution.
In addition to this, unlike services like PayPal as well as Venmo, which are known to rely on traditional financial systems for permissions for transferring money and on already existing credit or debit accounts, Bitcoin is decentralized, which simply means that two people, anywhere on the planet, can send Bitcoin to one another without having to involve any government, bank or any other institution for that matter.
Simply from a user’s perspective, Bitcoin is pretty much like cash for the internet and the currency can also be seen as the most prominent triple entry bookkeeping system in existence. Furthermore, Bitcoin is one such platform that is known to offer its users a much lower transaction fee as and when compared to any already existing traditional payments system online and as we already know by now, it has managed to trigger the launch of hundreds of different virtual currencies since it was first brought into existence.
Also, BTC is known to be the native utility token of the Bitcoin platform, which as a matter of fact, can be used for a variety of purposes on the platform itself. Basically, the overall growing popularity of bitcoin as a currency has reached a completely different level altogether.
This is mainly because it was one of the first currencies which was ever introduced and associated with the term cryptocurrencies globally and that it has really managed to capture the market and make a name for itself over all these years, with its prices skyrocketing as of today and people wishing they could have bought the token when they had a chance all those years ago!
Speaking of the currency being popular, it is probably worth noting that, as of today, many businesses and merchants all across the globe have started accepting Bitcoin as an official mode of payment from customers, all because of its credibility and popularity as mentioned earlier.
In order to back this claim, a couple of days ago, I came across a report that, a McDonald’s in El Salvatore started accepting Bitcoin as an official mode of payment from their customers and if a global fast-food giant like McDonald’s is starting to do so, it looks like in the next few years, this is surely going to be the case for every business out there, thus completely revolutionizing the global payment system as mentioned at the beginning.
Coming back to the topic, the invention of Bitcoin was simply a breakthrough in cryptography and one of its key innovations was the blockchain. As mentioned, Bitcoin is based on encryption and is extremely secure and at the same time, it is universally accessible as well. Other than this, know that Bitcoin is often considered to be a ‘store of value’ like gold, and just like gold, new Bitcoins are also created by the process of mining, which has a maximum limit of 21 million coins.
For some of you wondering as to what exactly is mining? Allow me a chance to explain. Bitcoin mining is simply the process by which thousands of computers all across the globe compete in order to record and verify transactions on the network. Also, these specialized computers are known as mining rigs and are responsible for performing the equations that are required to verify and record a new transaction.
History of Bitcoin
Before moving any further, it is worth noting that, as per the word in the industry, Bitcoin is said to have been developed by Satoshi Nakamoto, while the real person or persons behind the idea, still remains a mystery. The platform was founded nearly thirteen years ago, back in January 2009, and ever since it was first introduced, it has been nothing but a huge success worldwide.
On a similar note, on October 31, 2008, Nakamoto was known to publish Bitcoin’s whitepaper, which described in detail as to how exactly a peer-to-peer online currency could be implemented. Back then, they proposed to use a decentralized ledger of transactions packed in batches, commonly known as ‘blocks’, and were secured by cryptographic algorithms, and the whole system was later dubbed as blockchains.
Just two months later on January 3, 2009, Nakamoto officially minted the first ever block on the Bitcoin network, referred to as the genesis block, thus launching the world’s first cryptocurrency to have ever existed. In addition to this, when the platform was first introduced, the price of Bitcoin was $0 and most Bitcoins were obtained through mining, which only required moderately powerful devices as well as other mining software.
Apart from this, the first known Bitcoin commercial transaction occurred on May 22, 2010, when programmer Laszlo Hanyecz traded about 10,000 Bitcoins for merely two pizzas. As a matter of fact, at Bitcoin’s price today as of January 2022, those pizzas would have been worth an astonishing 478 million dollars. Also, this particular event is now referred to as “Bitcoin Pizza Day”. Lastly, in July 2010, Bitcoin first started trading, with the currency’s price ranging from 0.0008 US dollars to 0.08 US dollars at that time.
Now that we have talked much about Bitcoin, some of you must be wondering, whether or not it is a good idea to invest in the platform? If that’s the case, then let’s find out, shall we?
Investing in Bitcoin (BTC)
As of today, the price of Bitcoin is about 38,221.01 US dollars with a twenty-four-hour trading volume of 17,050,909,407 dollars. Not just that, in just the past twenty-four hours, the value of Bitcoin has gone up by 1.01 percent, and with the current market cap of 724,051,232,863 US dollars, BTC is currently placed at #1 position as per the CoinMarketCap rankings.
Also, it is worth mentioning that, the current circulating supply of Bitcoin is 18,943,800 BTC coins, with a maximum lifetime supply of about 21,000,000 BTC coins. In just the past week alone, the price of the platform has risen by 8.76 percent.
Reading so far, you must have gotten a fair understanding of the platform and by now, you should be able to figure out on your own whether or not investing in Bitcoin is the right thing for you to do. Seeing what it has to offer when combined with its performance in the recent past as well as its plans for the near future, I certainly believe that Bitcoin can prove to be a profitable investment in the near future, which is likely to provide you with higher returns and it is a possibility that your current investment may increase in value. But again, nothing can be said for sure!
If still not convinced, see it this way that, if say you buy Bitcoin worth a hundred dollars today, you will receive nearly 0.00263 BTC. According to the analysis done by experts on the field, after five years of your investment, the return is expected to be about +372.64 percent and thus, your current hundred-dollar investment will be nearly 472.64 US dollars in 2027.
As mentioned at the very beginning, crypto is a highly volatile marketplace and is extremely uncertain. Thus, It is very important for you to understand the fact that just like any other currency in the crypto marketplace, Bitcoin does have its own risks as well and you should invest only if you are willing to take those risks and bear any and all losses if at all necessary.
If you are wondering, where can you buy Bitcoin? Let me help you with that. Currently, Bitcoin is available on all major crypto exchanges but, some of the popular exchanges that have BTC listed on them include Mandala Exchange, Binance, OKX, CoinTiger as well as CoinFLEX to name a few.
In conclusion, what are your thoughts on Bitcoin? Do let us know in the comments area below. To know more about various cryptocurrencies, do check out other articles we have on our website. Thank you for your time & if you found our content informative, do share it with your investor friends!
Also read: Popular publicly listed companies that hold Bitcoin!
