Here are some facts you need to know about Bitcoin.
The decentralized digital currency.
First of all, Bitcoin can be used just the same way a standard currency is used to purchase items. Recently, the number of retailers and stores accepting Bitcoin as a payment method is growing daily. Online directories are even available to direct your steps to places that utilize bitcoin in exchange for goods and services.
Bitcoin is the first decentralized peer-to-peer cryptocurrency founded in 2009. The main focus of this currency is that there is no issuer or owner. The availability of Bitcoin is constrained and controlled by software.
One of the key characteristics is reasonably safe payment methods, affordable transaction fees, anonymity, and irreversibility of transactions, but also a very unstable exchange rate.
Despite the benefits associated with Bitcoin, it still has a volatile exchange rate and no one can predict how the market will be.
Peer to Peer
Peer to Peer (P2P) service is a platform where two users interact directly with each other on a decentralized basis. Transactions are done directly and leveraged by the ability to overcome the transaction cost of trust and information asymmetries that have traditionally existed because of the use of third parties.
The modern peer-to-peer concept was brought to light by sharing files and storing them on networks. On the peer-to-peer network, all the users are nodes that are involved and generally have equal power and rights to use the same tasks in the network. The peer-to-peer system allows millions of users to connect directly, form groups, and collaborate to function as file systems. Peer-to-peer services involve the simple buying and selling of assets that are considered to be part of the sharing economy. Users make, receive, verify and receive payments without the central issuer or a cleaning house for transactions. It is also a way of enforcing smart contracts.
In a P2P network, the users are responsible for maintaining the distributed network. Each node acts as the client and the server to each other and other nodes on the network. In any given circumstance, the users or “peers’’ need to act as a source for any given file stored in the network.
P2P is a crucial part of Bitcoin because the Bitcoin blockchain network is run on a P2P basis. This means that anybody can participate in the activities in the Bitcoin Blockchain network by validating and verifying blocks, which is similar to an open P2P network where anybody can join the network.
The Satoshi
The smallest portion of a bitcoin is referred to as a satoshi which is a mark of respect for Bitcoin’s inventor. As of April 11th, 2019, one satoshi is worth approximately 0.00005 U.S. dollars, which is a very low value. To create one bitcoin, you need roughly 100,000,000 satoshis. According to the average price of bitcoin, 15,800 satoshis are required to equal one dollar.
The First Bitcoin purchase was a Pizza.
Storytime… Almost 12 years ago, on May 22nd, 2010, a Floridian programmer named Laszlo Hanyecz was craving pizza, he walked up to a pizza hut and bought two packs of pizza. Well, we all have to satisfy our cravings, but the catch here is, that he didn’t pay with our standard traditional money, he paid with 10,000 Bitcoins now worth $221 million in July 2022! This was the first ever recorded real-time transaction with Crypto.
Do you think you’d be able to do the same if you were Laszlo at that time?
El Salvador is a legal tender for Bitcoin.
September 7th, an announcement was made as El Salvador became the first country to accept Bitcoin as a legal tender.
The President, Nayib Bukele announced the controversial move at the Bitcoin Miami earlier in 2021, he said “Bitcoin will join as a legal currency, but will not replace the U.S Dollar as a form of payments.”.
There are over 100,000 millionaires using Bitcoin.
Due to the anonymity of wallets and the occasionally dramatically fluctuating price of Bitcoin, it is very difficult to say with certainty how many millionaires or billionaires there are in the world of Bitcoin.
However, 98,180 addresses presently contain bitcoins (BTC) worth $1 million or more, according to BitInfoCharts. Twelve cryptocurrency millionaires, including Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX and the Winklevoss twins, were listed by Forbes on its 2021 Billionaires List.
