As per Wikipedia: Bitcoin is a worldwide cryptocurrency and digital payment system called the first decentralized digital currency, as the system works without a central repository or single administrator.It was invented by an unknown person or group of people under the name Satoshi Nakamoto and released as open-source software in 2009
Bitcoin and Blockchain are the buzzwords of the year. If you ever find someone feeling left behind and wondering, “WTH is the Blockchain?”, you know you can direct them to this guide.
There’s around 900 different cryptocurrencies that exist, with new ones being created every week. I can tell you for sure: 95% of the cryptocurrencies are scams or Ponzi schemes. And I get questions every day: “Is XYZ currency a scam?” And nobody listens to the answer.
The Digital Asset and Blockchain Foundation of India aims to create awareness about the benefits and risks of cryptocurrencies, liaise with regulators and get clarity on taxation, attract investment and set up incubators to promote startups.
Wolfgang Bergthaler, Co-founder of lab10 collective believes that blockchain not only offers ways to build decentralised peer-to-peer payment networks that include cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, but could potentially eliminate any kind of middleman or central authority running a service.
Blockchain’s potential reaches far beyond cryptocurrency. Blockchain ledgers can include land titles, loans, identities, logistics, and more to bring transparency to any multi-party transaction.
The Blockchain revolution may just change the way contracts are tracked between parties. Incidentally, this is the same technology that drives the controversial Bitcoin
Cryptocurrency is getting bigger as people invest their hard-earned money, seeing this as a money-making opportunity.
This is not a sudden change, and it has taken eight to nine years for cryptocurrencies to reach to the adoption stage from validation stage.
Bitcoin prices plummeted by 29 percent from a record high $7,882 last Wednesday, dropping to as low as $5,605 on Monday, according to data by Bloomberg.
A rival cryptocurrency, called Bitcoin Cash, spun off from Bitcoin in August, surged past the $2000 price point reaching close to $2426 on Sunday.
If you had asked me a few months ago what I thought about Bitcoins and the Blockchain technology in general, I’d probably reply with the same words you read in every headline related to this field — a decentralised, public ledger-based cryptocurrency.
“We feel that every startup in our accelerator needs to understand Bitcoin,” says Steve Hoffman, the cofounder of Founders Space. “It’s no longer an option to sit on the sidelines and wait to see what happens.”
In South African only a handful of online merchants accepted bitcoin till now. But the announcement of PayFast, South Africa’s major payment gateway processing bitcoin payments, for its 30,000 merchants could have large scale effect on the market.