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Bitcoin – Explanation Made Simple (Part 2)

Asia Equity Research Licensed Investment Adviser
Publish date: Wed, 17 Jan 2018, 10:25 AM
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IS CRYPTOCURRENCY THE FUTURE OF MONEY?

 

HOW TO KEEP BITCOIN?

In a Bitcoin wallet, that can be downloaded and setup from a computer or smartphone.

 

BITCOIN WALLET PASSWORD – ONCE FORGOTTEN UNLIKELY TO BE RETRIEVED

Just an example to show how important of choosing a place to store Bitcoin: it was reported that there was a service provider named Mt Gox, which was responsible for 70% of Bitcoin transactions in year 2014, disappeared overnight, with 850,000 Bitcoins belonging to customers valued at more than $450 million at that time, were missing and most likely were stolen.

There was another case, Mr. James Howells bought 7,500 Bitcoins when the cryptocurrency was still new, but in 2013, he threw away the hard drive which contained private keys of his Bitcoins. The Bitcoins would be worth over $126 million today. The owner’s effort in locating the landfill where his hard drive which currently sits awaiting recycling, is like finding a needle in a haystack

Hence the amount of Bitcoins in circulation is far lower than the amount of Bitcoins in existence. Of more than 16.5 million Bitcoins that have been mined so far, it is estimated that up to 25% have been accidentally lost or willfully destroyed.

 

USES OF BITCOIN

  1. Payment to merchants – Payment is made to merchants by remitting the amount of Bitcoin to the address of the merchant. At present, the number of merchants that accepts Bitcoin are small.
  2. An investment – To my knowledge, I have not come across an institutional investor consider Bitcoin as an asset class. Presently, it is a speculative asset. However, it is interesting to note that JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and American Express have recently invested in Bitcoin related companies. Investment analysts are still cautious about recommending Bitcoin as an investment.

 

IS BITCOIN THE ONLY CRYPTOCURRENCY?

No, there are many other cryptocurrencies with Bitcoin as the first cryptocurrency. There are currently more than 1,340 cryptocurrencies that exist right now but some of the names are seldom heard of. Something interesting to note out is that there are only about 200 currencies in the world.

 

 

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