12 CRAZY Facts About Bitcoin
Bitcoin.
The astounding success of this cryptocurrency might be a flash in the pan but it also might
be revolutionizing our global infrastructure.
Whatever the case may be there are some outrageous stories behind it.
Here are 12 CRAZY Facts About Bitcoin!
#12.
“Winklevoss Twins”-You might recognize Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, known more popularly
as the Winklevoss Twins, from their role in trying to wrangle Facebook away from Mark
Zuckerberg on their claim that it was their invention, but you might not be aware of their
immense success in the world of bitcoin.
When they successfully sued Zuckerberg in 2011 for 65 million dollars they didn’t
just wipe their tears with the cash, they invested $11 million of it into bitcoin.
When they converted their money into bitcoin the going rate was only $120 per bitcoin but
that investment paid off thousands of times over for them as the the going rate is now
over $17,000 making their portfolio worth over $1 billion dollars, making them the first
bitcoin billionaires.
Though they still are light years away from Zuckerberg’s net worth of over $70 billion
dollars, if bitcoin keeps going up they might catch him one day.
In order for this to happen the price of a bitcoin would need to reach $774,000.
#11.
“Mt.
Gox”- Mt.
Gox was once a beacon of achievement in the bitcoin world.
It was at one point the most successful website for the exchange of bitcoin, but due to some
extremely poor leadership and some brazen hackers they quickly became the mascot for
the fickle nature of dealing in the cryptocurrency marketplace.
Mt.
Gox was a Japan-based bitcoin exchange website that at its peak in 2013 was worth over half
a billion dollars.
Because its CEO Mark Karpeles didn’t take the necessary precautionary measures and update
his security software, in 2014 the company fell victim to hackers who stole over 460
million dollars worth of bitcoins.
This combined with several lawsuits from competing companies, angry customers and asset seizures
by the U.S. government forced the once (although briefly) mighty company to declare bankruptcy
and take itself offline.
As of 2017, there are still many unsatisfied customers who have been pining for years to
reach some sort of settlement from Mt.
Gox and Karpales and have yet to be compensated.
#10.
“Professional Investment”- Bitcoin reached new heights in its bid to be taken seriously
as a sustainable currency when two Chicago based exchanges, CME and CBOE decided that
they will begin trading in bitcoin futures.
This means that investors will now be able to get their own piece of this increasingly
lucrative market and may even skyrocket the price of bitcoin into the stratosphere.
These exchanges will actually be basing the prices of bitcoin shares off of their current
auction price as listed by the Gemini Trust.
Which is actually another incredibly successful venture started by the Winklevoss twins.
With the ability for bitcoin futures to be traded in such a competitive world arena it
adds a small amount of stability to a volatile entity and one could see how it could one
day overtake centralized currency.
#9.
“James Howells”- Welshman James Howells mined some 7,500 bitcoins in 2009 when they
were worth little over $1 each.
He subsequently fell out of the hobby and after accidentally spilling liquid on the
computer he dismantled it and stowed the hard drive which contained his bitcoin wallet in
a desk.
He eventually forgot about his cache of bitcoins and while cleaning out his office in 2013,
Howells decided to throw the hard drive away.
A couple months later he heard that the price of bitcoins had risen to $1,000 and remembered
the tokens he had obtained in 2009 and his heart dropped.
He quickly rushed to the landfill where his neighborhood trash was put and begin frantically
searching.
Unfortunately he has yet to find the missing hard drive though he still continues to search.
The coins in his wallet are currently worth over 7 and a half million dollars.
#8.
“FBI’s Wallet”- You might be wondering who some of the richest people in the world
are in terms of bitcoins.
Well for one of them we need to look no further than the United States’ own Federal Bureau
of Investigation.
The FBI is currently in possession of the largest bitcoin wallet which they obtained
when the seized the assets of the black market site Silk Road which used bitcoins in an attempt
to keep their illicit dealings anonymous.
When they raided the site they took control of the operator, Ross Ulbricht’s wallet,
which contained over 144,000 bitcoins.
These bitcoins are worth an estimated two and half billion dollars as of today, making
the FBI owners of the second biggest bitcoin wallet, just ahead of the Winklevoss Twins.
#7.
“The Creator”- So if the FBI is number two and the Winklevosses are number three
in terms of bitcoin wealth who is number one?
Well that title is believed to be held by none other than the cryptocurrency’s shadowy
creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.
Before leaving bitcoin to its own devices it is believed that Nakamoto mined over one
million bitcoins which he stored in several different wallets.
If you conceded these wallets contents as being worth at least a million dollars it
would put Nakamoto's worth at over 17 billion dollars.
So who is this digital billionaire?
Well frankly no one really knows.
There are several different conspiracies as to his or her identity and there are some
who say that Nakamoto is in fact a group of people.
Whatever the case may be we wonder whether or not Nakamoto will eventually come forward
and take credit for the bitcoin boom and give us his predictions on its future.
Or at least tell us what he spends his riches on.
#6.
“Powerful Network”- There are currently thousands of bitcoin mines around the globe
working 24/7 to compute their owners ways to financially glory.
The ridiculous amount of computers involved in some of these operations are staggering,
with companies paying outrageous electricity bills to keep their systems churning through
code.
It was recently estimated that if you added the power of all these mines together that
the network they create would be over 250 times faster than that of the combined computing
strength of the top 500 supercomputers in the world.
Of course these supercomputers are usually built to solve or process hundreds of extremely
complex equations at once whereas the systems built by bitcoin miners are only meant for
the comparatively simple mathematics needed to dig bitcoins out of the virtual ether.
#5.
“Bits of Pizza”- In 2010, when bitcoin was still in its relative infancy Lazlo Hanyecz
had a hunger for pizza that changed the cryptocurrency world.
On May 22 of that year he posted to the BitcoinTalk forum asking if anyone would take 10,000 bitcoins,
worth about $40 at the time for two pizzas.
A fellow bitcoin enthusiast agreed and accepted the bitcoins then order Lazlo two large pizzas
from Papa John’s, completing what is considered the first exchange of bitcoins for real-world
goods setting the mold for how these types of transactions would work in the future.
This day has become known as Bitcoin Pizza Day and bitcoin users all over the world celebrate
it by chowing down on pizza and noting how much that pizza would’ve been worth today.
As of 2017 the 10,000 bitcoins Lazlo spent on pizza would be worth a staggering $20,509,958.
So cheers to Lazlo, we hope you didn’t splurge all of your future fortune on a few slices
of Papa John’s!
#4.
“China’s Chunk”- Over the past two decades it seems like China has always been ahead
of the tech and financial game so it might not surprise you that they are the leading
country in the bitcoin mining industry.
In fact it is estimated that China controls over 70% of bitcoin’s network mining.
There are few different bitcoin mining megacopmanies in China but one of the most prominent of
them is Bitmain.
Bitmain’s headquarters is in China’s capital city of Beijing and not only owns several
bitcoin mining facilities but manufactures and sells the complex rigs needed for serious
mining operations.
It is believed that well over half of the mining rigs being used in the world today
were made by Bitmain.
This cutting out the middle-man type of business model has set up Bitmain as a force to be
reckoned with down the road if bitcoin continues to surge in value.
#3.
“Sure, We’ll Take ‘Em”- Bitcoins though becoming more and more popular as an acceptable
form of currency for businesses everywhere, are still viewed as financially volatile so
your curiosity might lead you to question what types of companies currently accept them
as payment.
When they first started becoming popular cryptocurrencies were viewed as being primarily for underhanded
or illegal dealings in which one wants to remain anonymous.
But as their value increased and their staying power was proven some companies brushed off
the stigma associated with bitcoin and jumped at the chance to open themselves up to a new
market.
At first it was mainly companies like online dating or shopping sites that forayed into
bitcoin but more and more companies are getting hip to the scene.
Large companies such as Lionsgate Films, Tesla and even some Re/Max Real Estate Franchises
have started accepting Bitcoins.
There are even some nonprofits who have started accepting them in order to increase donations
like Wikipedia and Save the Children.
Whats even more fascinating is that the space tourism branch of Virgin called Virgin Galactic
accepts bitcoins as a method to pay for future tickets on one of their space cruises.
A ticket on one of these flights currently costs an estimated 98 Bitcoins, equal to $250,000,
and yes, the Winklevosses already have theirs.
But the insanity doesn’t stop there!
Reportedly, the owner of two Montessori pre-schools in New York City has stopped accepting credit
cards as a form of payment but will accept bitcoins.
In 2013, in the country of Cyprus, which had fallen on hard economic times, the University
of Nicosia became the first university in the world to accept bitcoins for tuition.
The University is also trying to head the future off at the pass in other way, such
as offering extensive courses in blockchains and other aspects of cryptocurrency.
#2.
“Unacceptable”- However many companies and countries there are that become hip to
bitcoin there are still many who are afraid of its impact on their own centralized banking
systems and the international economy.
These fears have caused some countries to make the currency illegal.
Bitcoin is currently illegal in Thailand, Bangladesh, Iceland, Ecuador, Vietnam, Bolivia
and Kyrgyzstan.
Nepal became the most recent country to ban bitcoins in 2017.
Though bitcoin may technically be legal in all other countries, most governments are
still extremely wary of the currency and may have strict laws in place regarding the usage
of bitcoin.
You can also bet that anyone making large exchanges of bitcoins is sure to come under
the scrutiny of the various law enforcement agencies and the taxmen of their respective
countries.
On a positive note for bitcoin users some countries have openly embraced bitcoin and
we don’t only mean China.
In fact there are currently 55 countries that have some form of bitcoin ATM.
These are known as BTM’s by bitcoin users and are used to conveniently transfer, make
purchases and send payments when on the go.
There are also over 7 different types of bitcoin debit cards available, some which can be used
at these BTMs.
Amazingly there are over 1,000 BTMs in world right now ,the vast majority of them located
in the United States.
#1.
“Who Needs Cash?”- As casual observer who doesn’t fully understand the complexity
of this new age of digital currency it may be hard to see how their could be any way
to really use bitcoins in daily life but one couple from Provo, Utah survived using only
bitcoins for three months.
Austin Craig and Beccy Bingham decided to make a documentary about having to live with
only paying for things via bitcoin for 90 days and though they had to bend their own
rules a bit to succeed, they did.
Admittedly it was extremely difficult for them as most places, including necessary companies
that control things like electricity and water, still do not accept bitcoin so they had to
be clever by convincing those that might not normally accept them to accept them or by
getting someone to pay for these things for them and reimburse them with bitcoin.
Though the last part sounds like cheating, the main goal of their documentary was to
raise awareness to the cryptocurrency and better define its real-world applications.
Do you think bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are destined for failure?