You know what? If you have a clarity on Bitcoin and it’s underlying technology a.k.a Blockchain, you have covered more than 60% of the crypto market in terms of market capitalization. Although there are 10,000+ cryptocurrencies listed on coinmarketcap, in reality no one knows how many of them are out there. But no matter what, dominance of Bitcoin (BTC) is going to stay a majority for the time being. So, it only makes sense to explore more about this cryptocurrency. After all, the claims of overthrowing the existing financial system of the world are pretty bold and you need to have some substantial technology backing you in order for people to take you seriously. Therefore, today, we talk about top Bitcoin facts. These facts would throw a light on the vast world of blockchain and BTC. Let’s get started:
A. The anonymous founder:
Bitcoin or BTC was founded back in 2008 by a person with a pseudonym, Satoshi Nakamoto. Till date, no body knows who Satoshi Nakamoto is. If he is a man, woman, group of people, nobody is sure.
In my opinion, the people who mined the first block of the blockchain in 2009 were the founders of this technology. They might have chosen to stay anonymous for the following reasons:
- Free Publicity: Imagine if we knew who created Bitcoin, it wouldn’t have been as exciting as it is today. We can often say that a technology that is well placed to change the global economics is developed by an unknown entity. It just adds that extra kick to the entire thing right?
- Security: Another possible reason for staying under the hoods could be of security. When you come up with a money system that is a direct threat to governments across the world, it is in your best interest to watch the world burn from a distance.
B. Fractional Buying:
I recently hosted a webinar for about 150 people who were interested in cryptocurrencies. One of them told me that BTC is trading at INR 30L apiece currently. It is better that they would buy a 1BHK flat at Mira Road instead. While the statement is absolutely correct but a lot of people don’t know that you don’t have to purchase an entire Bitcoin (or any other crypto for that matter).
Bitcoin and other cryptos have an inherent property of fractional buying. In Bitcoin, this smallest unit can be 10^(-8) or one hundred millionth of a Bitcoin.
This smallest unit is named as Satoshi after Satoshi Nakamoto. That means you can actually buy Bitcoin for as low as a 100 bucks and start your crypto journey.
C. The Hodler Hierarchy
The entire crypto space is heavily dominated by a Gen-Z crowd. Therefore, you would find their influence every now and then. One example to show this would be the names they have given to big investors in Bitcoin. Yes. You read it right. Depending on the number of Bitcoins you hold, you are represented by a sea animal.
Quite a lot of this nomenclature is related to the food chain, in my opinion. For instance, if you hold <1 BTC, you are just a humble shrimp. Waiting to be eaten by anyone. In other words, you are at the mercy of a whale or humpback. If they dump their holding, you are kind of screwed.
D. The Biggest Humpback:
Okay. Find a chair nearby and sit down before reading this one. Who do you think is the biggest hodler of them all? Well, its none other than our beloved FBI. In September of 2013, the FBI shut down the Silk Road online drug marketplace, and it started seizing bitcoins belonging to the Dread Pirate Roberts — the operator of the illicit online marketplace, who they say is American man named Ross Ulbricht. The seizure had an unforeseen side-effect: It made the FBI the holder of the world’s biggest Bitcoin wallet. (source)
E. Losing Bitcoins:
Remember when you bought a new phone and installed every application in it from the scratch? When you installed your netbanking app, you realized that due to overuse of fingerprint unlock feature, you don’t remember your password any more. Correct? What happened next? Nothing serious. You conveniently pressed that ‘forgot password’ button, entered some details and were able to get back in. Super smooth.
All this happened because you were a part of a centralized system. There is an authority in the center that is helping you regain access to your account.
However, as we all know Bitcoin is based on a decentralized technology. So, if you are transacting on a decentralized exchange and forget your wallet’s private key (think of it as the password), you can say good bye to your Bitcoin(s) forever.
No, I am not making this up. Research shows that at least 60 percent of all Bitcoin addresses are ghosts, which means a huge chunk of the people using Bitcoins have lost their addresses and have no way to access their wallets. So while being independent has it’s own glory, it does come with a lot of responsibilities as well.
Conclusion:
Well, Bitcoin isn’t something that can be concluded in 5 odd facts. This time around, I just picked some interesting pieces of information which were worth sharing with beginners and experts alike. This would generate some kind of interest around this brilliant technology.
Did you find them interesting? Is there any fact that you’d like to share?
Got questions? Want to take it to the next level? Reach out to me using your preferred platform from the links below
Until next time..
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On a side note, I use CoinMarketCap for all my crypto related research. You can access it through multiple modes. Sharing the links below:
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[…] example, some people did not comply with Satoshi’s vision of Bitcoin, so they ended up creating Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Bitcoin […]