Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, i.e a form of electronic cash. It is the world's first decentralized digital currency, meaning it is designed to work without a central bank or any regulation and it can be transfered from person to person.
Here are things to know about Bitcoins:
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1. First Bitcoin was first issued in 2009 by someone with a pseudo name Satoshi Nakamoto. Who is also believed to be the founder.
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2. In 2009 when it was established, a bitcoin is worth $0.0009. I.e
$1 = 1111 Btc
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3. As at the time of writing this article (24th of July 2018) a bitcoin equals 8164.88 dollars i.e
1 Btc = $8164.88
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4. The first real-world transaction on Bitcoin was carried out on 22 May 2010 when Laszlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas in Jacksonville, Florida for 10,000 Bitcoins. In five days, the price grew 900%, rising from$0.008 to $0.08 for 1 bitcoin.
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5. As dollar and other currency are to 2 decimal places, bitcoins is to 8 decimal places i.e
$1 = 0.01 cent
1 btc= 0.00000001 Satoshi
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6. How do individuals get bitcoins?
i. Buy from person or visit websites that sell bitcoins and pay them. E.g Coinbase
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ii. Sell product or offer services in exchange for bitcoins or to be paid using bitcoins.
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iii. Mining (i.e running a software to find bitcoin) just like mining gold.
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7. How do people profit from bitcoin?
i. Invest or trade i.e you can buy and hold to sell at a later time for profit or do short term trading.
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ii. Offer discounts to people who are willing to pay using bitcoins. E.g if my phone cost #10,000 in the market, I can decide to sell it for #5000 (worth in bitcoins) if you are willing to pay me in bitcoins. So just convert the #5k to bitcoins and transfer it to me.
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iii. Mine (mining is free) then sell at the market value
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8. Certain amount of Bitcoins will be released every ten minutes and total bitcoins that will ever be issued is 21,000,000 which will last till year 2140.
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9. Just like Fiat currency e.g Dollar and Naira, Bitcoin is not backed by anything tangible. It increases in value by the trust people place on it. The more people try to invest on it, the more it value soar.
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10. Individual bitcoins are stored in app called Wallets. Examples are Coinbase, My Ether Wallet, Paxful, Mycellium etc.
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11. Every Bitcoin wallet issues you a
i. Public key -
27 to 32 Alphanumeric (alphabet and number) character. So u give this key to anyone who wish to send you coins.
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ii. Private key- Password to access ur bitcoin account.
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12. As at 18/07/2018, Mastercard has won the patent to link cryptocurrency with fiat accounts meaning as a user, you would have two linked accounts with your bank — one for your fiat wealth, and one for cryptocurrency.
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13. All the bitcoins transactions are stored in a public ledger called Block Chain where everyone has access to it since 2009.
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14. Apart from Bitcoins, other crypto - currencies has emerged such as Etherium, Litecoins, Dash, Doshcoin, Nubit etc.
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15. The 3 people with the highest number of bitcoins are:
i. Barry Silbert (cryptocurrency maven)
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ii. Tim Draper (billionaire venture capitalist)
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iii. Charlie Shrem (Bitcoin early adopter)
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16. Examples of big companies that accept Bitcoins are Microsoft, Paypal, Shopify, Wordpress, Reddit, Namecheap, Wikipedia, Badoo and so on.
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17. On Oct. 2013. The first Bitcoin Atm was made in Canada by Robocoin Mchine in a local coffee shop and since then there have being more than 3150 active bitcoin ATMs around the world,
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18. The truth is that you dont have to spend money before making bitcoin, you can spend your time and get it converted to money, infact there is a forum for Bitcoin participants i.e Bitcointalk.org with over 2 million users where people join various bounties and earn token for their services.
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19. Risks of bitcoin
i. political or government intervention. For example China has many times banned bitcoins because of the threat it poses to thier currency.
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ii. Bugs or software hack. There have been many recorded cases of some wallets apps been hacked thereby leading to consumers losing all their monies. So I will advice you only use Coinbase or My Ether Wallet.
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iii. Protocols that can lead to panick or lack of trust.
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Though Bitcoin is still an experiment, but the biggest question is - "will it be widely accepted as a means of payment and store of value like Gold?"
Well I will advice you not to wait until its too late.
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I earned my first bitcoin here:
https://freebitco.in/?r=14831215.
More info:
http://www.ortintin.com/2018/07/19-things-no-one-will-ever-tell-you.html?m=1
