Day 47: Bitcoin the future of money
Money
Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context.
Bitcoin
Bitcoin is open-source software, anyone can see and contribute code to the project.
It started as an experimental project and it became a multi-million industry.
Virtual money
Unlike the ‘classic’ currencies, bitcoin is a decentralized currency.
It means that there is not backed by any central banking or financial institution.
Fiat is how we refer to the government-issued currencies.
Is it safe?
Being a decentralized currency, there is a ledger of transactions that anyone can see.
These transactions correspond to people buying and selling bitcoins.
The transactions are independently verified by computers on the network.
Blockchain is the technology that bitcoin uses to record transactions.
In any case, Elon Musk seems to think it’s safe.
Cypress financial crisis 2012-2013
Cypress is known as a ‘tax haven’ due to the low tax and higher interest rates.
However, the economy of the country was falling apart due to increasing public and private debt.
As the second largest bank of Cypress closed down, residents rushed to pull their money out, but their accounts were frozen.
This exposed the fragility of the central banking/financial system and several bitcoin providers started appearing in the country.
Pricing
2009 - 2010 –> 10000 BTC = 50$
April 2011 –> 1 BTC = 1$
Nov 2013 –> $350 for 1 BTC
Apr 2014 –> $530
May 2017 –> $2000
Jul 2020 –> $10944
8 Feb 2021 –> $44200
My take on Bitcoin
Honestly, not being backed by any Government or Federal/Financial agencies means that if your money is stolen, it’s for good and this is scary.
But it does bring something non-negligible to the table which is economic freedom.
With Mastercard soon to accept cryptocurrencies as a legit way of payment.
The future seems very exciting indeed.
