Bitcoins: 23 Facts and Stories Around the Cryptocurrency
Transfers without Swift, IBAN, BIC and purpose. Protected against hyperinflation and tamper-proof. Transparent, direct and cheap. Bitcoins and the underlying blockchain technology can lift both the financial system and the Internet to the next level of evolution. The price is still too volatile, the PR (drugs, weapons, Darkweb) too bad and the financial crisis too weak to acknowledge Bitcoins the potential that lies dormant in the cryptocurrency. Let's take a look at the actual state.
What is certain is their past. That's why we collected 23 facts, companies and anecdotes from the nearly 10-year history of cryptocurrency.
reddit
The news aggregator Reddit was one of the first prominent platforms that allowed Bitcoin as an official form of payment. Microsoft Account, Overstock, Dell, Expedia and Threema followed. The Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) in Vienna was the first museum in 2015 to use Bitcoins to buy a work of art for the museum collection. Above all, tour operators, restaurants, pizza delivery services and municipal services accept the cryptocurrency. At the beginning of 2016, more than 8,000 places were registeredthat received bitcoins as a means of payment. Japanese companies in particular are driving forward the acceptance of the cryptocurrency: At the airline Peach Aviation you can book flights with Bitcoins. The Internet giant GMO is opening a Bitcoin exchange these days and the payment provider BITPoint wants to make hundreds of thousands of Japanese shops happy with the cryptocurrency.
From 800 to 2,000 to 10,000 dollars?
In January, the Bitcoin price slid below $ 800. Also in March, the price plummeted dramatically. Then to double within two months. A week ago, the Bitcoin price cracked the $ 2,000 mark for the first time. Today it is around $ 2,600. In the past five years, the price shot up by 55,000 percent. A bitcoin is thus significantly more valuable than a troy ounce of gold ($ 1,150). All bitcoins together are currently worth $ 35 billion. Traders consider a rise to $ 10,000 by the end of the year realistic. But no one can tell exactly where the journey of the Blockchain currency will go exactly.What is certain is their past. That's why we collected 23 facts, companies and anecdotes from the nearly 10-year history of cryptocurrency.
ATMs in Austria
The Bitcoin ATM in Coinfinity's office in Graz's Mariahilferstraße 21 was the first in Austria. In total there are 25 machines throughout the country where you can exchange common currencies for Bitcoins. Here are all locations .Bitpanda
The Viennese startup Bitpanda around CEO Eric Demuth is the largest bitcoin and ethereum platform in Europe with 200,000 users. Every day, 1,000 new customers are added. Via Neteller, Skrill, Sofortüberweisung, Giropay, Sepa and Amazon, users can directly buy and sell the crypto currencies. The core of the platform is a Bitcoin wallet with which the conversion of the crypto currencies into deposits on Amazon is possible. The company's goal is to make cryptocurrency trading as easy as trading on eCommerce platforms.Coinbase
The company Coinbase from San Francisco is the big brother of Bitpanda. Over $ 6 billion was traded on the platform by 7, 3 million users. In 2015, the company secured a $ 75 million investment on a financing basis. The prominent investors: the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the Texas Bank USAA and the Spanish BBVA. Overall, the highest investment in a Bitcoin business ever.Dalian, China
Around 70 percent of all bitcoins are gemined in China. High in the mountains in the Chinese city of Dalian are the largest bitcoin mining facilities . There, companies have created huge server farms. The mining describes a process in which user bitcoins "mine" through combined computing power in mining pools. As a reward for the introduced computing power bitcoins are paid. The bitcoin count is limited to 21 million. Currently, 15 million of them are in circulation. In the western world, take a look at mining pools like 50miner or bitminter .Ethereum
Ethereum (abbreviation: ETH) is a distributed system that uses the crypto-currency ether. The platform proved in the wake of bitcoins that the turingmächtige - so universal - programmability of the smart contracts the protection by the blockchain technology is possible. The operation was started in July 2015. Only 7 months later, at the end of February 2016, Ethereum's cryptocurrency ether had a market capitalization of over $ 500 million. Currently, the price skyrockets and is over $ 200.Faucets
Named for the real (dripping) faucets, the Bitcoin Faucets are rewards systems that distribute Satoshi for achievements on a website or app. Satoshis are worth a fraction of a bitcoin. The Faucets have the function of generating traffic and bringing the cryptocurrency closer to users.money laundering
In 2016, the first case of money laundering became known on a large scale with bitcoins. In a raid on several Dutch cities, ten people were arrested, systematically converting Bitcoin revenues from their darknet businesses into cash. However, one bank was struck by large sums and immediate payouts, and they reported the incident to the police. The income came from ecstasy sales in the Darknet. For the cashout of Bitcoins there are many methods. Some sites even offer direct mailing of banknotes to bitcoins.hardware
In order to operate bitcoin mining successfully, it needs appropriate hardware, since the mining requires a very high computing power. In the early days of the Bitcoins, the miners put on the conventional CPU of their computers, but their performance was soon exhausted. Then the stronger graphics processors came into fashion. The mines became more and more powerful. Therefore, several computers have been merged: FPGA (field-programmable gate array). Today, application-specific integrated circuit ( ASCI) mininers are in action that can fill entire factory halls. A functional home unit costs around 2,000 euros. An overview of the necessary products: here .Initial Coin Offering (ICO / IPCO)
An ICO is similar to an IPO in the virtual world (hence the similarity to IPO) or a crowdfunding campaign. Crypto startups raise capital through bitcoins to circumvent regulations that require investments or loans with traditional currencies. In an ICO campaign, the cryptocurrency is exchanged with supporters in exchange for dollars or euros. One of the most successful ICO campaigns of the last year was that of Golem. The P2P network raised $ 8.6 million in just a few hours. ( the most successful ICOS 2016) . According to CB Insights, companies for blockchain projects collected $ 69 million in the first quarter of 2017 through so-called ICOs. However, due to the legal gray area experts warn against ICOs.Nevertheless, according to CB Insights, the trend is likely to continue.Jaxx
A very simple wallet (see "W") for all devices. Jaxx bypasses the gatekeepers and connects all known exchange platforms. Neither onboarding nor verification procedures are necessary.Kraken
The world's best-known and most respected Bitcoin platform has been buying the industry since the beginning of 2015. In addition to the two stock exchanges Coinsetter (New York) and CleverCoin (Netherlands), Kraken also acquired Glidera, another major player in the bitcoin industry, at the end of 2016.Live chart
A good overview of the current prices of the crypto currencies offers cryptowatch .Mt. Gox
Originally, Mt.Gox was a platform for the tossing of trading cards in the game "Magic: The Gathering". In 2010, Mt.Gox was converted into a Bitcoin exchange. In 2013, 60 percent of Bitcoin global trading was mediated through Mt.Gox. In June 2011, a hacker used an employee's credentials to send themselves a large number of Bitcoins. This was followed by a price drop to 1 US cents per Bitcoin. Accounts with values of almost $ 9 million were affected. In May 2013, the US Department of Homeland Security seized online bank accounts as Mt.Gox did not register as a payment service provider in the United States. In February 2014, the big bang: Mt.Gox filed for bankruptcy protection with a Japanese district court. 750,000 bitcoins of customer deposits and 100. 000 Bitcoins of the company had been lost by a hacker attack. After the then market price a loss of 473 million US dollars. Later, the police went out of insider trading. Mark Karpeles, the former head of Mt.Gox, was arrested by Japanese authorities in August.node
Since Bittorrent we know what a P2P network is. Each user is technically equivalent, because in a decentralized network all clients (nodes) are the same. Each Bitcoin client stores the entire blockchain. He checks every transaction and forwards it. A node, unlike a wallet, provides direct access to the blockchain. The operator of a node also has an influence on how the Bitcoin blockchain is constructed. As a node operator, the user helps the bitcoin blockchain. Because the more nodes, the safer and faster the system works. And so you install a node.Offshore
For some time, the US tax office IRS has pursued US citizens who have accounts abroad with increasing vehemence. For example, after Switzerland agreed to cooperate more closely with the authorities, it is becoming increasingly difficult for US citizens to open offshore accounts. Some banks, such as Credit Suisse and UBS, are no longer accepting US bankruptcy petitions because they see their secrecy obligations in jeopardy. After the rapid increase in the Bitcoin price and more than 500 Bitcoin ATMs directly in the US, a bitcoin investment within the state borders is offered to high earners. Blockchain technology offers better collateral like a Swiss numbered account, as each wallet (see "W") is a bank in itself.Project Bitcrime
Together with the Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology, the AIT (Austrian Institute of Technology) monitors cybercriminals. The institute is the European leader in the analysis of cyber currencies. The GraphSense platform forensically analyzes virtual currency transactions. The AIT's analytics platform can handle hundreds of gigabytes in minutes through a distributed and scalable computing infrastructure. The Bitcoin blockchain was completely captured by the AIT on its own server structures. The ministry hopes to be better protected against cyberattacks such as the hijacking Trojan Wannacry, which has been paralyzing Windows systems worldwide in recent weeks and expecting ransom payments in Bitcoin as a request to release the blocked data.Smart contracts
Every bitcoin payment is a smart contract. These are protocols that depict contracts or provide technical support. Cryptocurrencies have implemented special cases of smart contracts; the subject of the contract is the currency transaction. If a sender does not provide the correct digital signature, there will be no transaction through the network.token
The "token economy" is seen by some visionaries as the new way of crowdfunding via cryptocurrencies. The "token economy" assumes that companies and startups are raising money by providing company shares in the form of bitcoin investors. Balaji Srinivasan, an investor with Andreessen Horowitz, said in an interview with Fortune Magazine that "token-based companies will experience far greater value creation and capitalization in the future than the current generation of Internet corporations."origin
In 2008 it became known that a person had invented a new currency under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. The magazine Wired had the Australian entrepreneur Craig Steven Wright suspected, since a mobile number in the signature, which used Satoshi Nakamoto for correspondence, was admitted in his name. The search for the inventor was so exciting because he was said to have a sum of one million bitcoins. In 2015, Bhagwan Chowdhry, a professor at the University of Los Angeles, introduced Satoshi Nakamoto to the Nobel Prize for Economics. However, a nomination of a person with unexplained identity is not possible. That could change in the coming year, because Wright submitted to the British TV channel BBC and the magazine The Economist crypto key that only the inventor of Bitcoins can own.Venezuela
The financial crisis in Venezuela is an example of how cryptocurrencies can change entire economies. After the hyperinflation had brought the whole country to succumb, ATMs no longer spit out money and food stores remained empty, the share of Bitcoin users rocketed. From 450 in August 2014 to 85,000 in November 2016. Some companies only accept Bitcoin because of the high volatility of the Bolivar. However, the government cracked down on miners in February of that year. Two men selling mining equipment were arrested. In the city of Valencia, a department store was searched and secured over 11,000 mining facilities. The two operators are said to have belonged to a Polish criminal ring and were charged with cybercrime and terrorist financing.Wallets
A Bitcoin wallet contains the key codes that assure each user access to a Bitcoin address and allow you to receive and send funds. Each user is assigned a wallet. The wallets can also be saved offline on a USB stick. For security reasons, this method is even advisable.
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