Why Should I Buy Bitcoin?
If you are still undecided, then here are the reasons you should consider buying Bitcoin. These days, those who advocate Bitcoin see the software used as an alternative financial system that allows its users to claim sovereignty over their own financial assets. So, investors can hold bitcoin to store value if they are looking for more financial independence.
What Is Bitcoin?
So, let’s delve a little deeper into what Bitcoin actually is. Bitcoin is an invention that for the first time ever, allows its group of software users to make and manage a digital form of money that cannot be controlled by governments, companies or banks.
It was originally introduced in 2009 and was considered a revolutionary concept. But even more than ten years later, the implications are still being felt, explored and understood by economists and technologists everywhere.
As such, depending on who you talk to, you might get all different interpretations of what Bitcoin actually is and why they have any value.
To start, it is helpful to think of Bitcoin as being like a software protocol that most people interact with on a daily basis. It can be compared to SMTP - which helps to route your emails or HTTP which ensures your requested browser web content is delivered by servers.
The Bitcoin protocol allows any computer that runs its software to manage a data set (known as a blockchain) and enforces the bitcoin rules that make bitcoin coins both rare and valuable.
The Bitcoin protocols use:
Public Key cryptography: As such, a bitcoin wallet assigns owners two different keys - a public key(one used by the protocol to prove that you own the bitcoin) and also a private key (which acts as a sort of password. You need to keep it secure to make sure that only you can access your bitcoins).
Peer-to-peer networking: The computers that run the software (nodes), review bitcoin transactions to make sure that the software rules are being adhered to. Bitcoin miners (nodes that use special computer chips) then compete with each other for the right to match such transactions into blocks that will be periodically added to blockchains.
According to bitcoin rules, there is only ever going to be a finite supply of 21 million bitcoins ever produced. This limit gives Bitcoin added value.
The Bitcoin Blockchain
The Bitcoin blockchain is the entire record of the network’s history that is completely validated by the people that run the Bitcoin software. This means that unlike most forms of digital data that can be easily modified and copied, bitcoin can’t be. Because of the rarity of bitcoin - and the fact that they are transferable and divisible, they can be used in place of money.
The Creation of Bitcoin
Although Bitcoin can fairly make the claim of being the first successful cryptocurrency in the world, it works on a technology that has been built on many years of ideas as to how cryptography can help to forge and create a digital money system. This includes the following formative projects:
B-money: This is a proposed anonymous distributed digital money system
Bit Gold: The attempt to create a rare online digital commodity.
eCash: An attempt to make quick and anonymous online payments.
HashCash: This system works on proof-of-work and is designed to prevent email spam.
In the Beginning
In the beginning, back in 2006, the world was introduced to Satoshi Nakamoto - a pseudonym for a person or group of people that began developing a code for a new online digital money system - Bitcoin.
‘Nakamoto’ wrote numerous emails and posts, giving his/hers/their ideas as to what the future of Bitcoin might be - and then went on to leave the project in 2011. These days, numerous developers all contribute to Bitcoin’s code and all participate in the system by helping with efficiency improvements such as small glitches and bug fixes.
A Decentralized System
Most technologists believe that what makes Bitcoin stand apart from the other digitised money systems is its decentralized network. In order to understand the idea behind decentralization and what makes it important, you need to consider how traditional banking currently works.
Chances are, your monthly or weekly wages are paid directly into your bank account. The bank then allows you to use your own money by card and ATM - but in return, they offer means to keep it safe, via vaults, guards and alarms.
In this case, the bank acts as the central authority - third parties that help to facilitate the transactions between businesses and individuals. Fundamentally, they act as the middleman. They offer their services for every customer and this gives them control over thousands or millions of people’s money.
This gives them power, and with this power, they make and change - and break the rules. They might lend your money out without your permission, they might refuse to process one of your transactions and can even deny you access to your own money. It also makes it possible for the Government or criminals to get hold of your data and money from the bank.
Thus spawned the idea of Bitcoin - a system that has no middleman or central authority. You have complete control of your money and the transactions you make cannot be denied. Bitcoin is considered ‘decentralized’ because it runs on software that allows any person to trustlessly verify the scarcity and authenticity of any bitcoin they receive. As such, the decentralization of the coins solves trust problems that hold back and are inherent with the centralized money managers. Moreover, if any computer ceases to perform its function, it can easily be replaced with another.
A bitcoin developer tends to consider the network as centralized, depending on the cost of an average user synchronizing a node with the network. They then propose protocol changes according to how it impacts the process.