Bitcoins!? Yes. The online virtual currency. You probably don't care much about it, but you should probably pay attention. Bitcoin was and probably is commonly associated with the black market. Yeah, you remember Silk Road and all of those online trading sites. But you may not know how valuable Bitcoins are now.
So what are Bitcoins? They are a form of virtual currency, a currency that is not backed like how the US Dollar is by gold. Bitcoins are also pretty safe surprisingly. Obviously there are many instances of hacking, etc. Bitcoin was founded over 8 years ago in 2009, and the value has risen and as of February 2015, there are over 100,000 merchants that accept bitcoin and between 3-6 million users at least. You can imagine how many more people use bitcoin. Bitcoins are pretty
volatile, as it is about 7 times more volatile than gold, 8 times more than S&P 500, and 18 times more than the USD!
And now, a Bitcoin is worth $3451.86, which is impressive, considering how 8 years ago someone paid 150,000 BTC to pay for two Papa John's pizzas. So yes, Bitcoin is now on the rise. The most recent surge is attributed to the creation of Bitcoin Cash, a "spin-off" of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin mining. There are machines that "mine" for Bitcoin, meaning that they generate money. Essentially, you pay for an expensive machine that makes you money. In a nutshell it seems quite easy, but there are some caveats and kinks. Basically in order to mine for BTC you need to solve mathematical puzzles. You don't solve them yourself, but they are so hard and complex that you need a computer to process it. If you solve a puzzle first then you get a block of coins, which is about 25 per block currently. It's so hard that even a PC or a medium-sized ASIC (application Specific Integrated Circuit) won't work as well. People will sometimes mine together in a mining pool and then split the shares after the puzzle is solves. Mining was once done of PCs and then graphics cards, and then it was onto ASICs. Now people are dishing thousands on fancy machines. Is it really worth it? Well, it takes a lot of investment and time, things that most people do not have the means of effort to.
You have to watch out though, as there are scams out there. Look at Butterfly Labs, launched in 2010. The company promised to deliver machines that would bring in blocks for users, but customers who ordered them never received them or received them too late, beyond their usefulness, as they could not compete with the pace of the Bitcoin world. The company was forced to shut down and there are multiple lawsuits.
Bitcoins are interesting because we are seeing right before our eyes technology merging with business/finance. Twenty years ago, this would've ever imagined this would happen.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40848505
http://www.businessinsider.com/knc-sells-8-million-in-miners-2013-11
So what are Bitcoins? They are a form of virtual currency, a currency that is not backed like how the US Dollar is by gold. Bitcoins are also pretty safe surprisingly. Obviously there are many instances of hacking, etc. Bitcoin was founded over 8 years ago in 2009, and the value has risen and as of February 2015, there are over 100,000 merchants that accept bitcoin and between 3-6 million users at least. You can imagine how many more people use bitcoin. Bitcoins are pretty
volatile, as it is about 7 times more volatile than gold, 8 times more than S&P 500, and 18 times more than the USD!
And now, a Bitcoin is worth $3451.86, which is impressive, considering how 8 years ago someone paid 150,000 BTC to pay for two Papa John's pizzas. So yes, Bitcoin is now on the rise. The most recent surge is attributed to the creation of Bitcoin Cash, a "spin-off" of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin mining. There are machines that "mine" for Bitcoin, meaning that they generate money. Essentially, you pay for an expensive machine that makes you money. In a nutshell it seems quite easy, but there are some caveats and kinks. Basically in order to mine for BTC you need to solve mathematical puzzles. You don't solve them yourself, but they are so hard and complex that you need a computer to process it. If you solve a puzzle first then you get a block of coins, which is about 25 per block currently. It's so hard that even a PC or a medium-sized ASIC (application Specific Integrated Circuit) won't work as well. People will sometimes mine together in a mining pool and then split the shares after the puzzle is solves. Mining was once done of PCs and then graphics cards, and then it was onto ASICs. Now people are dishing thousands on fancy machines. Is it really worth it? Well, it takes a lot of investment and time, things that most people do not have the means of effort to.
You have to watch out though, as there are scams out there. Look at Butterfly Labs, launched in 2010. The company promised to deliver machines that would bring in blocks for users, but customers who ordered them never received them or received them too late, beyond their usefulness, as they could not compete with the pace of the Bitcoin world. The company was forced to shut down and there are multiple lawsuits.
Bitcoins are interesting because we are seeing right before our eyes technology merging with business/finance. Twenty years ago, this would've ever imagined this would happen.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40848505
http://www.businessinsider.com/knc-sells-8-million-in-miners-2013-11
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