If there’s one word that’s been on the lips of Americans this year, it’s certainly: cryptocurrency. Crypto in many forms has overtaken the attention of the marketplace this year, and more people are trading in this new form of currency than ever before.
Despite the popularity of new forms of cryptocurrency, the main form that most people are familiar with is Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the longest-running and most discussed of the cryptocurrencies out there in circulation. However, if you’re new to crypto, you might not know much about it.
What are some facts about Bitcoin you should familiarize yourself with if you’re looking to get into the crypto world? What’s some helpful information that might be useful to know? Read on and we’ll walk you through all the details.
Table of Contents
1. No One Knows Who Invented Bitcoin
One of the major elements that make bitcoin what it is? The ability for traders to remain anonymous. You do not need to tie your identity to your cryptocurrency in any way.
That might sound intriguing enough on its own, but let’s take this fact a little further. The most surprising thing about Bitcoin to those who have not followed its rise is that no one knows who the original inventor of Bitcoin actually is.
The inventor is publicly known as Satoshi Nakamoto. However, Satoshi is not a real figure, and whoever is behind the name remains unknown to the public. While people have stepped forward claiming to be the real Satoshi, no hard evidence has ever been provided.
Despite being created in secret, Bitcoin has gone on to take the world by storm. One day, one wonders, we might find out who turned out to be the brains behind it all.
2. Bitcoin Is Not Limitless
Many people make the mistake of thinking that because Bitcoin is created digitally, that there must be an unlimited amount as a resource. As you might imagine, this would provoke a serious inflation issue and Bitcoin would not remain of value to many people.
In order for Bitcoin to work, some element of scarcity must exist in the marketplace. There must be, at some level, scarcity to create demand. Demand is what drives the price of bitcoin up.
As designed by Satoshi, the bitcoin complex is structured so that the most bitcoin that will ever exist will be 21 million bitcoin units. At this amount, no more Bitcoin will come to be.
At this moment in time, 16 million bitcoin units have been generated. That means there are only 5 million more units that are left to be mined. We are moving quickly towards bitcoin completion in some sense.
3. Bitcoin Mining
Where does bitcoin come from and how do people acquire it initially? Most people buy bitcoin from other users and traders, while others try their luck at the Best Bitcoin Casino.
However, back at the source, all of this bitcoin originated through a digital process known as bitcoin mining. Mining contributes to power and computing processing to the overall Bitcoin server.
As a reward for leveraging this kind of space to the bitcoin complex, the user is rewarded with a new Bitcoin.
This is how new bitcoin enters the market. It can take a lot of time, work, and money in order to properly mine Bitcoin, which is how the scarcity of the marketplace begins to work. Not all people can mine Bitcoin, and it does take a very massive amount of computing power to make it all work.
4. Some Countries Ban Crypto
One of the major things that draw many traders to the world of cryptocurrency is that it is removed from other kinds of oversight. The major difference between crypto and most currencies people use is that there is no government that regulates or controls crypto. It is completely of the people.
Many governments worry about this and feel as if it might severely disrupt their economies. It might also disrupt their power and control. For this reason, many countries around the world have actually taken steps to ban the use o cryptocurrency.
Nigeria, for example, has banned cryptocurrency exchanges. Turkey doesn’t allow cryptocurrency payments to take place. China has banned large institutions from providing cryptocurrency-related services. This more recent ban has had a huge impact on the sale and trade of Bitcoin around the world.
It is difficult for these countries to successfully ban crypto and prevent the trade of the digital currency. However, the idea that this kind of trade would face this kind of pushback does make people hesitant to invest in digital currencies such as Bitcoin.
On the other hand, many countries such as the United States have embraced Bitcoin. Large companies such as PayPal and Square have made trading cryptocurrency easy for many Americans.
No one knows what the future holds but, in the US, the future for Bitcoin does seem more bright. There is little call for banning cryptocurrency here in the states. If anything, people seem to want more access and more popularity as opposed to less.
Learning New Facts About Bitcoin
If you’re brand new to the world of cryptocurrency, you might not be that familiar with how it all works or what the big players are. Learning about bitcoin will be one of the first things that you’ll want to do.
The above facts about Bitcoin can set the record straight and give you all the information you need to get started in this new and exciting realm.
Need more Bitcoin facts or trading advice? Keep scrolling our blog for more.
