Bitcoins has quickly become a new and powerful currency. Bitcoin is an all digital currency which was first introduced in 2009 by an anonymous person that went by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto, and in 2010 left the project. The project however continued because of Bitcoin's open source code, allowing any one to contribute and participate in the project.
Bitcoin is like any other currency in the world, like the US dollar, Euro, Yen, or the UK pound, stored in your wallet, or in the case of the Bitcoin, in your digital wallet, except there is no central authority that facilitates Bitcoin and has completely anonymous transactions. You can acquire Bitcoins in 4 different ways, first accepting them as payment, donations, buying them, or making your own Bitcoins by mining them. Mining is the term used to describe the creation of new Bitcoins. Anyone can sit up a server which through a long and lengthily process unique Bitcoins are produced. Once a Bitcoin is produced the miner, can keep it for them self, sell it, or use it.
The value of Bitcoins have increased dramatically since its creation. On December first the Bitcoin reached its height, at $1203 and as of now it is $726 per Bitcoin, according to blockchain.info, a popular online Bitcoin wallet.
$726 is still quite a significant amount of money for one Bitcoin and may continue to rise or fall, depending on how governments plan to handle it. Because of Bitcoins decentralization, many organizations are wary of it. Just as of last Thursday, Decmember 5th, China has restricted banks from accepting Bitcion as a currency, which in return had the value of Bitcoins drop from its over 1,000 dollar value to its current $726 value.
The Bitcoin has become popular, because of its high value. At football game at Auburn University, broadcasted by ESPN on November 30th, an attendee held up a sign that had scanable QR code, and on the sign it read "HI MOM SEND Bitcoins". The attendee ended up receiving 22 Bitcoins, which at the time was about $24,000.
Another man recently seeing the value of Bitcoin, now has to dig through 4 feet deep of garbage in order to find his fortune in a dump in Newport, Whales. John Howells in the middle of summer through out a hard drive containing 7,500 Bitcoins, worth about 4 million Pounds, or about 6.5 million Dollars. Howell had his laptop set up to mine Bitcoins in 2009 and were stored on his hard drive. Now it is almost impossible to find and will likely be lost in the dump.
Everyone is going crazy over Bitcoin, but it is hard to determine if its value will continue to rise and be recognized as a legitimate currency.
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