OLDER people, those aged 60 and above, find reassurance in holding cash. Perhaps it’s because they lived through more difficult times; or maybe it is due to being older and less secure about one’s place in the world.
I’m sure our parents will not be comfortable with Bitcoin, a new currency that was created in 2009 by a person using the alias Satoshi Nakamoto.
Is Bitcoin (the most known form of cryptocurrency) real money? Does it have its own version of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas or a regulating body? Bitcoin can be used to book hotels and shop online, and its value is high. I read somewhere that five years ago, a Bitcoin was worth $20.
Last December it was around $19,000. So this means that, if you bought Bitcoin in the early days, you’d have made quite a lot of money by now. With Bitcoin, you don’t hold any cash. It’s virtual money. I will be honest, I don’t understand the concept fully, but I’ve been studying it for weeks. And I’m not some middle-aged woman who doesn’t understand a thing about things related to finance. I know that people have the impression that all I write about is makeup but, believe it or not, I was once a reporter assigned to the Bangko Sentral (when it was still called the Central Bank) and the Department of Finance.
So, I did a lot of research, and I still don’t understand it fully.
The “mining” and circulation of Bitcoins, however, are not regulated by banks or other such institutions. You can, however, purchase them through trading platforms. So why does Bitcoin exist, and why was it ever invented? Since I have been reading up on this topic, my understanding is that Bitcoin eliminates the need for a middleman, like a bank.
“What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party,” Satoshi Sakamoto said. Note: Sakamoto has extensive writings about Bitcoin.
To further understand Bitcoin, I browsed through many web sites and forums.
“Bitcoin shows that trust doesn’t need a centralized third party (i.e., banks) to establish trust. You can have a decentralized network of trust instead. People can easily, safely and securely transact on this network of decentralized trust. This is groundbreaking. It completely disrupts a major value proposition for banks,” writes EyesEarsMouthAndNose on Reddit.
You can’t touch Bitcoins, but you can store them in a “digital wallet in the cloud or your computer.
This wallet is a bank account that allows you to send or receive Bitcoins, pay for goods or save your money. I also read somewhere that you can keep your Bitcoins in a flash drive or hard drive and carry it in a physical wallet.
In 2013 a man threw a hard-drive containing more than $9 million in Bitcoin into the trash. Okay, $9 million was the value at that time.
The man, an information technology engineer who was one of the early adaptors to Bitcoin, never found his hard drive again.
So, where can you use your Bitcoins? Not in many places as of now, but you may use them to purchase pizza on PizzaForCoins, which handles a lot of brands. You can also buy games, movies and apps in the Windows and Xbox stores of Microsoft, or gift cards from Gyft, which deals with many popular retailers. You may also shop at Overstock.com, which carries brand-name merchandise, including bed-and-bath goods, home decor, kitchenware, watches, jewelry, electronics and computers, sporting goods, apparel and designer accessories. PayPal also accepts Bitcoin as payment via its integration with Braintree.
So, will crytptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, eventually rule the financial world? Maybe not in the very near future, but there is no doubt that we’re moving toward a cashless society. I still can’t see my mother shopping with Bitcoins, but more and more people certainly will in the years to come.