Back in 2009 when the first virtual coin, Bitcoin, came on the scene, very few people knew what to make of this new currency. Some said it was the wave of the future, while others said it would never catch on.
The person who allegedly created the Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto said (shortly after its release), “It might make sense just to get some in case it catches on. If enough people think the same way, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once it gets bootstrapped, there are so many applications if you could effortlessly pay a few cents to a website as easily as dropping coins in a vending machine.”
Not only did this new virtual currency catch on, but it spread like wildfire. Within five years of its release, over 31 million transactions had taken place, with over 25 million people using the currency. Even though few people really understood the programming behind this virtual currency, the fact that it could be traded, bought and sold just like any other currency, made bitcoin an exciting prospect for early traders.
Within seven years of its release, many merchants jumped on the bitcoin wagon, including Fiverr.com, Overstock.com, and many other online merchants. Even some bars and restaurants are now accepting bitcoins! As a matter of fact, you can buy just about anything with bitcoin. You can even make purchases from Amazon and Ebay by using All4btc, which is a kind of go-between that lets you order from practically anywhere on the web.
Mining Bitcoins
What really makes Bitcoin so popular, however, is the fact that anyone can create their own Bitcoins. The only drawback is that mining – the process of creating bitcoins – requires a significant amount of computer power. Many bitcoin miners, however, will work with other users to create “mining pools.” This allows them to collectively create new blocks and then split the Bitcoins.
Another thing that makes bitcoins so exciting is the ever-fluctuating value of the bitcoin. When bitcoin was first released, it was valued at 1BTC (Bitcoin) = 1USD (U.S. Dollar). As its popularity grew, the value of Bitcoin rose until, at one time, 1BTC was worth almost as much as 1oz of Gold! This meant, if you bought Bitcoins from the beginning, you would have seen a 1000% return on our investment. Bitcoin values, however, have decreased over time and seem to have steadied themselves at 1BTC = around 600USD. At the time of this writing, according to Preev.com, the exact value of 1BTC is 603.2 USD.
How to know which virtual coins will catch on
While most investors don’t foresee any dramatic movement in the Bitcoin market, that doesn’t mean that you’ve missed the boat if you didn’t purchase Bitcoins when they were cheaper. Fortunately, new virtual currencies are being created just about every day. Most of these coins may never see any action, but there are a few notable ones. The likes of Litecoin (created by Charles Lee in 2011); Peercoin (created by Scott Nadal and Sunny King in 2012); or OneCoin, created by Dr. Ruja Ignatova in 2014 may be as much of a virtual goldmine as Bitcoin was in the first few years of its existence!
The trick is to find the “movers,” or the virtual coins that seem to be catching on. You don’t want to buy them when they have already reached their peak value, however. One of the best ways to find newer virtual coin markets that show signs of movement is by watching the market, through sites like coinmarketcap.com, which tracks virtual currency movements and display them via graphs. You can also keep an eye out for new virtual currencies, by going to Reddit, which has its community of users that discuss new Cryptocurrencies every day!
If you have your eye on the market and you keep your ear out for new opportunities, you are bound to find some new virtual coin that may just be the goldmine you’ve been looking for. All you have to do is find them and mine them! Happy Mining!
Featured photo credit: quifinanza via quifinanza.files.wordpress.com
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1 Bitcoin equals $ 600. It is shocking for me that its price was that much low. But as far as today is concerned, the price of BTC is 9775 $. (Source btctousd.net ) . No doubt the predictions are there that the price of BTC could go to 20,000$. Hope for the best.
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