The first thing I got to know about cryptocurrency was when one of my friend referred me to United Kingdom’s first cryptocurrency called Electroneum.
He asked me to invest in it, I then started researching on cryptocurrencies and got to know that bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency.
Here are some facts you need to know about Bitcoin.
- The first Bitcoin purchase was for pizza
Did you know why May 22 is celebrated as Bitcoin Pizza Day?
Initially, when bitcoins were mined, they were virtually worthless as it cost literally cents to buy a BTC.
But it was until 22 May 2010, when someone purchased something with bitcoins.
Seven years ago, on this day, someone bought Piazzas with bitcoins and this purchase was a big deal because no retailer was accepting bitcoins at that time for goods and services.
On 22 May 2010, two Papa John’s Pizzas were exchanged by Laszlo Hanyecz for 10,000 BTC. This was the first official documented purchase of goods using bitcoins.
At that time, the worth of 10,000 BTC was $41. At the time of writing this article, the worth of 10,000 BTC is around €77,209,913.
- The inventor of Bitcoin is a mystery
Yes, that’s correct! The inventor of Bitcoin is still unknown.
Since the inception of Bitcoin in 2009, there have been several speculations about who the father of Bitcoin is. The Bitcoin whitepaper was made open to the public under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto. The identity of “Satoshi” is still a mystery yet to be solved.
Amidst this confusion, there are some people like Craig Wright, an Australian entrepreneur, who in May 2016 claimed to be the inventor of Bitcoin. However, this guy, later, turned out to be just another scammer. He with his partner tried to pump a forked version of Bitcoin called Bitcoin cash and made a lot of innocent users lose their hard-earned money. None the less, he bought a Limbo with all the scam money.
- Bitcoin is untraceable & Bitcoin is NOT untraceable.
When making Bitcoin transactions, your name/identity is not used in any form. Only your public address is available.
But… The Bitcoin blockchain is a permanent ledger which is transparent. If anyone knows your Bitcoin public address, they can see how many bitcoins you hold and what transactions you have made. It’s how the FBI was able to bust the owner of Silk Road.
If users of Bitcoin want to hide their public address or IP, it can be done by using services like Bitmixer.io or a VPN.
That said, this just makes it difficult to trace; difficult, but not impossible.
- If you lose your Bitcoin private key, you lose your bitcoins.
James Howells, an IT guy, lost 7,500 bitcoins in November 2013. While he was cleaning his desk at home, he threw away his hard disk containing the private keys of bitcoins which he had mined in 2010.
The realization dawned on him when he read the news of a Norwegian man who made a fortune by buying BTC at a low price. He searched and searched but could not find his hard disk.
At present, the worth of 7,500 BTC is approximately $19.4 million. Without the private key, the funds are lost forever no one can use them.
Until this point in time, it is estimated that around 25% of all bitcoins have been forever lost.
After researching about cryptocurrency, I invested in Electroneum, I bought 62000 of Electroneum for less than a cent per ETN and after two weeks the ETN was 0.20 cent per ETN and sold all of them and made profit. This was my first cryptocurrency transaction.
Computer Industry 