When the first cryptocurrency ever, bitcoin, appeared nobody knew how huge it'll become.
I mean, the first bitcoin purchase was 2 pizzas!
However, right now bitcoin is far from being on top.
So what happened?
Let me take you back to the beginning.
2007.
Japan.
The mysterious man named Satoshi Nakamoto starts working on his new bold idea – a
concept of bitcoin.
In August of the next year three men file an application for an encryption pattent application.
Surprisingly, all of them say that they have no idea who Nakamoto is which starts the rumour
that it might be just a pseudonym for a whole group of people.
Then on August, 18, 2008 Bitcoin.org was anonymously registered.
Just 2 months later Nakamoto published a white paper called Bitcoin – A Peer to Peer Electronic
Cash System, explaining the whole idea behind the bitcoin.
However, the system officially started to work only in 2009 when the creators mined
the first ever bitcoin block called Genesis Block.
Naturally, Nakamoto made the first bitcoin transaction, sending 10 bitcoins to a computer
developer.
In October 2009 bitcoin exchange rate was finally revealed – 1 dollar equalled 1.309
bitcoins.
Now it was time for bitcoin transactions and the first one was made in May of 2010.
A programmer from Florida sent 10,000 bitcoins (which was about 25 dollars) to buy two pizzas.
If he only knew that a couple of years later these bitcoins will worth around 39 million
dollars...
That's a lifetime supply of pizza right there!
By the beginning of 2011 1 bitcoin was worth 1 dollar.
With all the buzz around it 4 months later it was already 31 dollars against 1 bitcoin.
However, it didn't last that long – just 4 days after this peak the value of bitcoin
decreased back to 10 dollars, thanks to security issues.
Still, this didn't stop bitcoin from conquering the world – with more services accepting
bitcoins and new apps coming, in April of 2013 it hit the new height of 266 dollars.
A couple of hiccups here and there and in November of the same year 1 bitcoin went up
to 1.242 dollars!
Two thousand seventeen was a golden year for bitcoin – in summer its price increased
to 3.000 dollars, in September it got to 5.000 dollars and by the beginning of 2018 it beat
all the records going all the way up to mind-blowing 13.000 dollars!
But on this note everything went downhill...
If you think that your 2018 sucked, bitcoin can definitely compete with your story.
Everything was against it – China ramped up their cryptocurrency sanctions, while Facebook,
Twitter, and Google decided to ban cryptocurrency ads.
As a result, bitcoin plummetted back to 3.000 dollars.
These days the situation is a bit better, though – you can get 1 bitcoin for roughly
3.958 dollars.
Still, why the most popular cryptocurrency in the world suddenly started to collapse?
Well, there are a couple of factors that contributed to it.
Bitcoins depend on a system of miners that verify all the bitcoin transactions.
However, these miners get their own dose of bitcoins for their service as well and these
expenses are getting bigger every day.
This process hurts not only bitcoin but some miners too – they generate less profit and
close.
And this circle seems to be never-ending!
Some countries aren't fans of cryptocurrency as well, including the US.
In 2018 the US Securities and Exchange Commission made it clear that the operators of 2 initial
coin offerings must pay fines and restitution.
The main reason behind it is that they basically broke the law by selling unlicensed securities.
And, as you can probably guess, this situation doesn't make investors more excited about
buying bitcoin too.
Analysts also have another theory for bitcoin fall – the division within the cryptocurrency
community.
Unfortunately, bitcoin can process only a certain number of transactions per second
and not everybody is happy about it.
In 2017 a faction of the cryptocurrency community developed Bitcoin Cash, an alternative version
of bitcoin.
And, naturally, numerous investors chose Bitcoin Cash which allows them to make transactions
way faster and improve their work.
It got so popular that today 1 bitcoin cash values around 158 dollars.
Just imagine how many investors original bitcoin lost!
So yeah, there are tons of theories on why bitcoin keeps on falling but no definite answers.
And it's not surprising – that's just the nature of bitcoin!
It's far from being stable now, so you basically buy a lottery ticket when you decide to invest
in it.
But it still survived all the other turbulent times in the past, right?
Of course, with gradual fall of bitcoin other cryptocurrencies started to become more and
more popular.
Today anyone who wants to get into cryptocurrency has tons of options to choose from, for example...
NEO
NEO was originally called AntShares and developed in 2014 by Da Hongfrei.
This is the largest cryptocurrency coming from China which got people talking a lot,
since China doesn't approve the whole idea of the cryptocurrency market.
NEO reached its all-time peak back in 2017 when it valued about 162 dollars.
Today, however, it equals only a little bit over 9 dollars for one token.
Monero
Monero is an open-source cryptocurrency that first came to market in 2014.
It's highly private, safe, and leaves no trace whatsoever.
And that's why it has so many dedicated fans that donate their money for its further development!
However, there is a dark side to this cryptocurrency as well, as its exceptional security measures
allow buyers to use it for bad purposes.
Developers try to make the situation better, though, and nowadays 1 monero equals a little
bit over 54 dollars.
Litecoin
Litecoin was created back in 2011 by a former Google engineer Charlie Lee.
It's one of the first cryptocurrencies launched and is even called a “silver to bitcoin's
gold!”
In some ways litecoin is way better, though – it's based on a open source global payment
network and has a way faster block generation rate and transaction confirmation.
Right now 1 litecoin is worth almost 59 dollars and developers continue to do everything they
can to make it even more popular and accepted.
Dash
Dash or as it often called darkcoin was developed in 2014 by Evan Duffield.
It's basically a more private version of popular bitcoin.
When you use dash, your transactions are almost impossible to trace, so you don't have to
worry about your anonymity!
And this factor attracts numerous users who choose this cryptocurrency all around the
world.
At the moment the value of dash is around 90 dollars, though.
Ethereum
Ethereum is a whole platform run on its own unique token called ether.
The pre-sales for ethers were launched in 2014 and the platform itself started working
in 2015.
According to the platform descrition, you can use ether to trade, secure, and codify
almost anything!
In 2016 Ethereum split into Ethereum and Ethereum Classic.
Now everyone who's interested in this platform can get 1 ether for roughly 137 dollars.
But even with all these different cryptocurrencies around, the market is still not that stable.
So can cryptocurrency actually survive the crisis and become the basis of our future
economy?
Nobody knows for sure.
Bitcoin advocates say that the number of things you can buy with cryptocurrency grows faster
and faster.
Of course, it's still not enough to become widely common but then again the small supply
and uneven distribution of cryptocurrency shows that right now this is a thing for a
small group of interested people.
Government regulations of cryptocurrency are also very important.
The more countries accept it, the more comfortable cryptocurrency investors feel!
And here everything seems to go pretty smoothly, as more and more countries start looking into
it.
However, one thing still remains a huge concern – security.
Even though some cryptocurrencies, like Monero, have high security standards, others can be
pretty vulnerable against any type of cyber attacks.
Bitcoin, for instance, was already hacked a couple of times, making investors think
that its unsafe.
Obviously, all these times were followed by the serious decrease of its value.
So security is certainly one of the main problems cryptocurrency market has to solve to help
bitcoin on its way to rule the world.
So as you can see yourself the future of cryptocurrency market seems to be pretty vague.
There are a couple of predictions, though.
Some specialists say that bitcoins can lay a great basis for countries with weak national
currency, especially considering the fact that nobody has direct control over their
price.
Others are sure that cryptocurrency is gonna fail because of its instability.
But some people still believe in the happy future for bitcoin, for example, Tim Draper,
billionaire investor, who gave a bold prediction that one bitcoin will achieve the value of
250.000 dollars
by 2022.
I guess we'll see!
And
what do you think about cryptocurrency: is it the future or just a passing trend?
Sound off in the comments below.
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Stay on the Bright Side!