Topic: What is Bitcoins (Read 1116 times)
It seems like this project team really left the project. There are no answers to all questions here, there are no meaningful updates in social media accounts. and twitter account PGOLD only has 2 followers.
Yupp, no way, theres honest mistakes, but certain things are just too shady
Using different profiles, plagiarizing a whitepaper, leaves a stain, this shit is burnt
I would never trust a plagiarized whitepaper, talk about lazy, imagine how lazy their coding would be for their coin: /
Using different profiles, plagiarizing a whitepaper, leaves a stain, this shit is burnt
I would never trust a plagiarized whitepaper, talk about lazy, imagine how lazy their coding would be for their coin: /
This will not go anywhere anyway. The thread is not gaining legit attention because of so many complications on this project. I guess, the team should close this thread and move on. This project is not for them. Maybe, if they are serious, do their business and not use crypto. Anyway, they have gold as claimed, right?
These guys will be back with a new ICO/IEO projects soon.
We basically gave them all the information they needed to prevent this from happening again
but exposing their bad deeds was the best for the investors community. Yupp, no way, theres honest mistakes, but certain things are just too shady
Using different profiles, plagiarizing a whitepaper, leaves a stain, this shit is burnt
I would never trust a plagiarized whitepaper, talk about lazy, imagine how lazy their coding would be for their coin: /
Using different profiles, plagiarizing a whitepaper, leaves a stain, this shit is burnt
I would never trust a plagiarized whitepaper, talk about lazy, imagine how lazy their coding would be for their coin: /
This will not go anywhere anyway. The thread is not gaining legit attention because of so many complications on this project. I guess, the team should close this thread and move on. This project is not for them. Maybe, if they are serious, do their business and not use crypto. Anyway, they have gold as claimed, right?
Yupp, no way, theres honest mistakes, but certain things are just too shady
Using different profiles, plagiarizing a whitepaper, leaves a stain, this shit is burnt
I would never trust a plagiarized whitepaper, talk about lazy, imagine how lazy their coding would be for their coin: /
Using different profiles, plagiarizing a whitepaper, leaves a stain, this shit is burnt
I would never trust a plagiarized whitepaper, talk about lazy, imagine how lazy their coding would be for their coin: /
Getting fraud charges is a bad thing for your project, and you should fix it if you can. I see you have several partnerships, can you prove to us that they really support your project? I would like to see an official announcement from each of your partnerships.\
Most probably its all for a show to sugar coat their project with sweet promises for their investors. None of them are aware that their logo is being used by unknown entity.Evidence was presented that they went by another identity to front a previous project and are now courting fresh IDs. People just don't flip their entire identities from one project to the other. Nobody can tell which is real or if ever a real one existed in the first place. However, knowing that none of the public profile has any background in the industry they are claiming to be raising funds for, while copypasting and presenting another project's ideas as their wholesale, you don't need the weatherman for this one.
Getting fraud charges is a bad thing for your project, and you should fix it if you can. I see you have several partnerships, can you prove to us that they really support your project? I would like to see an official announcement from each of your partnerships.\
Most probably its all for a show to sugar coat their project with sweet promises for their investors. None of them are aware that their logo is being used by unknown entity.~snip~
About the white paper:
Since we are a small company that is just starting out with your project, we of course do not have such a well-developed white paper!
But that will follow in the course of time and we will keep updating it, I promise.
And yes, to our shame we copied something from other projects that do similar things.
But I don't think that's so bad.
~snip~
About the white paper:
Since we are a small company that is just starting out with your project, we of course do not have such a well-developed white paper!
But that will follow in the course of time and we will keep updating it, I promise.
And yes, to our shame we copied something from other projects that do similar things.
But I don't think that's so bad.
~snip~
Having an small team is not a reason to copy someone else work. If you dont have the team or the capacity to write your own original content then why people should invest in your project.
This is the reason why most DT users tag the company as a scam. Iam afraid once your project has been tag as a scam them its will forever mark as a scam in this forum.
If you are confident with your copy paste project then push through with it and only time will tell if your project can be survive.
There is an alternative even if none of the small member has the ability to write a paper, higher someone who can, as long as the content is representing your brand, you can't not plagiarize someone else content and expected to be taken seriously,
that is a big offense and i expect a project owner to know this, this is not the first project claiming to be backed with Gold, none has been able to push it through, am certain this won't be any difference.
plagiarism is really common among blockchain projects. a lot actually do not start from scratch but maybe they should have put the proper references and at least paraphrase not copy word for word. in terms of the team members, i guess even if they give legit linkedin profiles, it will not stop them from possible screwing their investors if they have the intentions to do so. a lot of known projects still scammed investors even if they have known faces in the industry.
but why backed this project with gold? do they have the resources or just bluffing? we are tired of projects trying to tie up with gold but in actuality, they don't have anything to do with gold or they don't have idea what they are saying.
Aside from that, their Co-Founder linkedin profile has only 7 connections without photo? Something shady here. Just fresh account created for this project? Does he have any other profile aside from linkedin?
In my Linkedin Profile, there is a photo of myself!
And i have more contacts on other platforms and in the real business world!
But I will now ask my contacts if they have a linkedin profile and can add me
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-markus/
You can also find a photo of me on the website - https://backed-by-gold.com/member/tim-markus/
best regards,
Tim
Your contacts and pictures are simply what that they are - yours. There's nobody to attest to or disprove the veracity of the identity provided. And while getting your irl business contact to add you on linkedin sounds like a "positive" narrative, adding folks on linkedin/buying adds is one lucrative industry that most of us are aware of. The fact that none of the team background points to anything gold prior to this offering just throws more shades on the whole affair. And don't get me started on someone creating a telegram channel and asking people to post their input/comments/suggestions there. You can't post on channels, only in group. Topnotch marketing department there
In my Linkedin Profile, there is a photo of myself!
~Snip~
You can also find a photo of me on the website - https://backed-by-gold.com/member/tim-markus/
best regards,
Tim
~Snip~
You can also find a photo of me on the website - https://backed-by-gold.com/member/tim-markus/
best regards,
Tim
The photo will not prove anything. Maybe be a video speaking about your project will add some confidence for your project.
Getting fraud charges is a bad thing for your project, and you should fix it if you can. I see you have several partnerships, can you prove to us that they really support your project? I would like to see an official announcement from each of your partnerships.\
Most probably its all for a show to sugar coat their project with sweet promises for their investors. None of them are aware that their logo is being used by unknown entity.
Getting fraud charges is a bad thing for your project, and you should fix it if you can. I see you have several partnerships, can you prove to us that they really support your project? I would like to see an official announcement from each of your partnerships.\
Beside all that plagiarism issues that you simply can't defend and there is no excuse whatsoever for doing that, what do you have to say about your 2 team members (CEO and Business Manager)?
Their CEO Rene Cosmos was involved in one older scam from 2018, Oratium, that was discovered by @ICOEthics
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/oratium-scam-blatant-plagiarism-5075489
Also, what about your business manager Steph Lam? Why was her name Stella Elech in that scam, Oratium?
Their CEO Rene Cosmos was involved in one older scam from 2018, Oratium, that was discovered by @ICOEthics
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/oratium-scam-blatant-plagiarism-5075489
Also, what about your business manager Steph Lam? Why was her name Stella Elech in that scam, Oratium?
They used 1 more member from Oratium. Steph Lam, Pyrrhos business manager was also known as Stella Elech
this is not looking good for the pyrrhos company. is there no other way but to "cheat" so as to fulfil some requirements? now that some bad decisions are exposed, how can they expect people will trust them to have gold in possession? are they going to "cheat" again about their assets? the co-founder has a lot of things to prove here because of the bad choices for this project. in this community, you need to work hard to vindicate yourself from initial allegations.
Aside from that, their Co-Founder linkedin profile has only 7 connections without photo? Something shady here. Just fresh account created for this project? Does he have any other profile aside from linkedin?
In my Linkedin Profile, there is a photo of myself!
And i have more contacts on other platforms and in the real business world!
But I will now ask my contacts if they have a linkedin profile and can add me
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-markus/
You can also find a photo of me on the website - https://backed-by-gold.com/member/tim-markus/
best regards,
Tim
Of course we do our best not to fail with our project;)
We also want to implement the exchange of tokens for real gold on our website.
Of course, this presupposes that we also hold real gold as equivalent to the token!
Our goal is to get better than our competitors!
But we are still at the beginning and have a lot to do,
but we are also working intensively on this project and that full time!
To the LinkedIn profiles:
Of course, that's another thing ... To be listed by Ethereum or Eherscan, you need a few employees whose LinkedIn profiles have over 500 contacts ...!
Since no normal person has more than 500 contacts on LinkedIn, there is really no other option than to buy these profiles;)
Ethereum only accepts LinkedIn, if, for example, Facebook would be accepted ... most of my employees and colleagues have more than 500 friends there, but FB is unfortunately not accepted, only LinkedIn.
Or for example the number of business contacts in the real world! But that doesn't count in the online world
Unfortunately, nobody asks how you are connected in the real world and what contacts you have there... thats a bummer...
So you are forced to buy something or "cheat" as a small company ...
You can't just stop your project because you don't have 500 Linkedin friends.
I don't think that's a good move from ethereum-foundation!
But I think that's not only with us, it would have to be with almost every Ethereum project to be listed ...
We also want to implement the exchange of tokens for real gold on our website.
Of course, this presupposes that we also hold real gold as equivalent to the token!
Our goal is to get better than our competitors!
But we are still at the beginning and have a lot to do,
but we are also working intensively on this project and that full time!
To the LinkedIn profiles:
Of course, that's another thing ... To be listed by Ethereum or Eherscan, you need a few employees whose LinkedIn profiles have over 500 contacts ...!
Since no normal person has more than 500 contacts on LinkedIn, there is really no other option than to buy these profiles;)
Ethereum only accepts LinkedIn, if, for example, Facebook would be accepted ... most of my employees and colleagues have more than 500 friends there, but FB is unfortunately not accepted, only LinkedIn.
Or for example the number of business contacts in the real world! But that doesn't count in the online world
Unfortunately, nobody asks how you are connected in the real world and what contacts you have there... thats a bummer...
So you are forced to buy something or "cheat" as a small company ...
You can't just stop your project because you don't have 500 Linkedin friends.
I don't think that's a good move from ethereum-foundation!
But I think that's not only with us, it would have to be with almost every Ethereum project to be listed ...
Beside all that plagiarism issues that you simply can't defend and there is no excuse whatsoever for doing that, what do you have to say about your 2 team members (CEO and Business Manager)?
Their CEO Rene Cosmos was involved in one older scam from 2018, Oratium, that was discovered by @ICOEthics
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/oratium-scam-blatant-plagiarism-5075489
Also, what about your business manager Steph Lam? Why was her name Stella Elech in that scam, Oratium?
Their CEO Rene Cosmos was involved in one older scam from 2018, Oratium, that was discovered by @ICOEthics
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/oratium-scam-blatant-plagiarism-5075489
Also, what about your business manager Steph Lam? Why was her name Stella Elech in that scam, Oratium?
They used 1 more member from Oratium. Steph Lam, Pyrrhos business manager was also known as Stella Elech
~snip~
About the white paper:
Since we are a small company that is just starting out with your project, we of course do not have such a well-developed white paper!
But that will follow in the course of time and we will keep updating it, I promise.
And yes, to our shame we copied something from other projects that do similar things.
But I don't think that's so bad.
~snip~
About the white paper:
Since we are a small company that is just starting out with your project, we of course do not have such a well-developed white paper!
But that will follow in the course of time and we will keep updating it, I promise.
And yes, to our shame we copied something from other projects that do similar things.
But I don't think that's so bad.
~snip~
Having an small team is not a reason to copy someone else work. If you dont have the team or the capacity to write your own original content then why people should invest in your project.
This is the reason why most DT users tag the company as a scam. Iam afraid once your project has been tag as a scam them its will forever mark as a scam in this forum.
If you are confident with your copy paste project then push through with it and only time will tell if your project can be survive.
I don't think the problem is with having a small team as you've rightfully pointed out, the problem is there was never an original thought to base any content on in the first place or even be bothered with researching the existing. Just another rushed attempt at a cash grab.
If a WP = Blueprint, then there's no reason to dick around with the thing that will be used to build YOUR product - not another person's product.
Also, "not a scam" tends to be the famous last words of every scam outted
~snip~
About the white paper:
Since we are a small company that is just starting out with your project, we of course do not have such a well-developed white paper!
But that will follow in the course of time and we will keep updating it, I promise.
And yes, to our shame we copied something from other projects that do similar things.
But I don't think that's so bad.
~snip~
About the white paper:
Since we are a small company that is just starting out with your project, we of course do not have such a well-developed white paper!
But that will follow in the course of time and we will keep updating it, I promise.
And yes, to our shame we copied something from other projects that do similar things.
But I don't think that's so bad.
~snip~
Having an small team is not a reason to copy someone else work. If you dont have the team or the capacity to write your own original content then why people should invest in your project.
This is the reason why most DT users tag the company as a scam. Iam afraid once your project has been tag as a scam them its will forever mark as a scam in this forum.
If you are confident with your copy paste project then push through with it and only time will tell if your project can be survive.
There is an alternative even if none of the small member has the ability to write a paper, higher someone who can, as long as the content is representing your brand, you can't not plagiarize someone else content and expected to be taken seriously,
that is a big offense and i expect a project owner to know this, this is not the first project claiming to be backed with Gold, none has been able to push it through, am certain this won't be any difference.
~snip~
About the white paper:
Since we are a small company that is just starting out with your project, we of course do not have such a well-developed white paper!
But that will follow in the course of time and we will keep updating it, I promise.
And yes, to our shame we copied something from other projects that do similar things.
But I don't think that's so bad.
~snip~
About the white paper:
Since we are a small company that is just starting out with your project, we of course do not have such a well-developed white paper!
But that will follow in the course of time and we will keep updating it, I promise.
And yes, to our shame we copied something from other projects that do similar things.
But I don't think that's so bad.
~snip~
Having an small team is not a reason to copy someone else work. If you dont have the team or the capacity to write your own original content then why people should invest in your project.
This is the reason why most DT users tag the company as a scam. Iam afraid once your project has been tag as a scam them its will forever mark as a scam in this forum.
If you are confident with your copy paste project then push through with it and only time will tell if your project can be survive.
Hey,
we did not copy the entire white paper, but took it as a template and rewrote it.
Of course, some parts are similar, I'm very sorry! But I promise that we will write a completely new and
completely new one in the next few weeks if it has become a little quieter here!
When we have the new white paper ready, I will of course publish it here immediately.
But where it matters, the code of the token is of course not copied;)
It is based on Ethereum but we have rewritten it and changed it so that it fits our project.
This code can also be viewed on Github.
I hope of course not that we are listed here as "scam" ... that would be a shame, since we really put a lot of work into it, and will put a lot of work and energy into it!
We will handle it this way for now; we will let the development and programming
continue as normal at 100%, rewrite the white paper and then inform you here!
Best wishes,
Tim
~snip~
About the white paper:
Since we are a small company that is just starting out with your project, we of course do not have such a well-developed white paper!
But that will follow in the course of time and we will keep updating it, I promise.
And yes, to our shame we copied something from other projects that do similar things.
But I don't think that's so bad.
~snip~
About the white paper:
Since we are a small company that is just starting out with your project, we of course do not have such a well-developed white paper!
But that will follow in the course of time and we will keep updating it, I promise.
And yes, to our shame we copied something from other projects that do similar things.
But I don't think that's so bad.
~snip~
Having an small team is not a reason to copy someone else work. If you dont have the team or the capacity to write your own original content then why people should invest in your project.
This is the reason why most DT users tag the company as a scam. Iam afraid once your project has been tag as a scam them its will forever mark as a scam in this forum.
If you are confident with your copy paste project then push through with it and only time will tell if your project can be survive.
Hey guys,
I am the co-founder of the project.
I'm a little surprised that you say our project is a scam ... it is absolutely not!
This is a completely new project and we really have no intention of scaming anyone!
We are only a very small team and that's why I ask you not to go so hard with us.
About the white paper:
Since we are a small company that is just starting out with your project, we of course do not have such a well-developed white paper!
But that will follow in the course of time and we will keep updating it, I promise.
And yes, to our shame we copied something from other projects that do similar things.
But I don't think that's so bad.
To my Linkedin profile:
Why is it so bad when I only have 9 contacts?
I don't work with LinkedIn that much and I focus more on other things and programming than connecting with people.
About the gold deposits:
We actually plan to deposit every coin with real gold.
It should not be a "pump and dump" project.
The project is intended for a long time and is intended as a way to keep gold in a tokenized form.
I hope you are not so hard and to stamp the project as a "scam" right from the start.
We are in our initial phase and are working really hard on this project!
Of course we are not yet as big as our competitors and in some things not quite as professional,
but we are really professional when it comes to programming and the backend of the project!
Best wishes,
Tim from Pyrrhos Gold
I am the co-founder of the project.
I'm a little surprised that you say our project is a scam ... it is absolutely not!
This is a completely new project and we really have no intention of scaming anyone!
We are only a very small team and that's why I ask you not to go so hard with us.
About the white paper:
Since we are a small company that is just starting out with your project, we of course do not have such a well-developed white paper!
But that will follow in the course of time and we will keep updating it, I promise.
And yes, to our shame we copied something from other projects that do similar things.
But I don't think that's so bad.
To my Linkedin profile:
Why is it so bad when I only have 9 contacts?
I don't work with LinkedIn that much and I focus more on other things and programming than connecting with people.
About the gold deposits:
We actually plan to deposit every coin with real gold.
It should not be a "pump and dump" project.
The project is intended for a long time and is intended as a way to keep gold in a tokenized form.
I hope you are not so hard and to stamp the project as a "scam" right from the start.
We are in our initial phase and are working really hard on this project!
Of course we are not yet as big as our competitors and in some things not quite as professional,
but we are really professional when it comes to programming and the backend of the project!
Best wishes,
Tim from Pyrrhos Gold
They been caught in using plagiarize content in their whitepaper, So nothing else to see here and i highly doubt anyone in their right mind will invest in this half baked project.
Oops! dead on arrival, i mean if a project can not even have a decent white paper to represent their brand what else could be expected of such project! they plan to have their token baked by gold yet can't even write a white paper, good thing they are caught in their lies before people fall victim.
Aside from that, their Co-Founder linkedin profile has only 7 connections without photo? Something shady here. Just fresh account created for this project? Does he have any other profile aside from linkedin?
If you're planning to invest into this project ! Stay away from it!
There's an accusation to this coin https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/pyrrhos-gold-plagiarized-whitepaper-5217356
There's an accusation to this coin https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/pyrrhos-gold-plagiarized-whitepaper-5217356
They been caught in using plagiarize content in their whitepaper, So nothing else to see here and i highly doubt anyone in their right mind will invest in this half baked project.
Gold is good, but why do I need a token secured with gold? Does your project have a technological breakthrough or know-how? I think no. As a result, the cost of the token will increase several times? I think no.
I think that will make the token value-able... you can redeem the
Fixed it for you.
Gold is good, but why do I need a token secured with gold? Does your project have a technological breakthrough or know-how? I think no. As a result, the cost of the token will increase several times? I think no.
I think that will make the token value-able... you can redeem the real gold if you don't want to trade the token anymore!
So this project just make the digital gold trading decentralized ?
Gold is good, but why do I need a token secured with gold? Does your project have a technological breakthrough or know-how? I think no. As a result, the cost of the token will increase several times? I think no.
What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a digital currency created in January 2009. It follows the ideas set out in a whitepaper by the mysterious and pseudonymous developer Satoshi Nakamoto, whose true identity has yet to be verified. Bitcoin offers the promise of lower transaction fees than traditional online payment mechanisms and is operated by a decentralized authority, unlike government-issued currencies.
There are no physical bitcoins, only balances kept on a public ledger in the cloud, that – along with all Bitcoin transactions – is verified by a massive amount of computing power. Bitcoins are not issued or backed by any banks or governments, nor are individual bitcoins valuable as a commodity. Despite it not being legal tender, Bitcoin charts high on popularity, and has triggered the launch of hundreds of other virtual currencies collectively referred to as Altcoins.
Understanding Bitcoin
Bitcoin is a type of cryptocurrency. Balances of Bitcoin tokens are kept using public and private "keys," which are long strings of numbers and letters linked through the mathematical encryption algorithm that was used to create them. The public key (comparable to a bank account number) serves as the address which is published to the world and to which others may send bitcoins. The private key (comparable to an ATM PIN) is meant to be a guarded secret and only used to authorize Bitcoin transmissions. Bitcoin keys should not be confused with a Bitcoin wallet, which is a physical or digital device which facilitates the trading of Bitcoin and allows users to track ownership of coins. The term "wallet" is a bit misleading, as Bitcoin's decentralized nature means that it is never stored "in" a wallet, but rather decentrally on a blockchain.
Style notes: according to the official Bitcoin Foundation, the word "Bitcoin" is capitalized in the context of referring to the entity or concept, whereas "bitcoin" is written in the lower case when referring to a quantity of the currency (e.g. "I traded 20 bitcoin") or the units themselves. The plural form can be either "bitcoin" or "bitcoins." Bitcoin is also commonly abbreviated as "BTC."
How Bitcoin Works
Bitcoin is one of the first digital currencies to use peer-to-peer technology to facilitate instant payments. The independent individuals and companies who own the governing computing power and participate in the Bitcoin network, also known as "miners," are motivated by rewards (the release of new bitcoin) and transaction fees paid in bitcoin. These miners can be thought of as the decentralized authority enforcing the credibility of the Bitcoin network. New bitcoin is being released to the miners at a fixed, but periodically declining rate, such that the total supply of bitcoins approaches 21 million. Currently, there are roughly 3 million bitcoins which have yet to be mined. In this way, Bitcoin (and any cryptocurrency generated through a similar process) operates differently from fiat currency; in centralized banking systems, currency is released at a rate matching the growth in goods in an attempt to maintain price stability, while a decentralized system like Bitcoin sets the release rate ahead of time and according to an algorithm.
Bitcoin mining is the process by which bitcoins are released into circulation. Generally, mining requires the solving of computationally difficult puzzles in order to discover a new block, which is added to the blockchain. In contributing to the blockchain, mining adds and verifies transaction records across the network. For adding blocks to the blockchain, miners receive a reward in the form of a few bitcoins; the reward is halved every 210,000 blocks. The block reward was 50 new bitcoins in 2009 and is currently 12.5. As more and more bitcoins are created, the difficulty of the mining process – that is, the amount of computing power involved – increases. The mining difficulty began at 1.0 with Bitcoin's debut back in 2009; at the end of the year, it was only 1.18. As of October 2019, the mining difficulty is over 12 trillion. Once, an ordinary desktop computer sufficed for the mining process; now, to combat the difficulty level, miners must use expensive, complex hardware like Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC) and more advanced processing units like Graphic Processing Units (GPUs). These elaborate mining processors are known as "mining rigs."
One bitcoin is divisible to eight decimal places (100 millionths of one bitcoin), and this smallest unit is referred to as a Satoshi. If necessary, and if the participating miners accept the change, Bitcoin could eventually be made divisible to even more decimal places.
What's a Bitcoin Worth?
In 2017 alone, the price of Bitcoin rose from a little under $1,000 at the beginning of the year to close to $19,000, ending the year more than 1,400% higher. More recently, the cryptocurrency has declined in value and more-or-less plateaued, save for a few periods of relatively lower price figures (the early portion of 2019, when prices hovered around $3500) and relatively higher ones (June and July of 2019, when prices briefly peaked at over $13,000). As of October 2019, Bitcoin seems to have found a new price point in the range of $8,000 to $9,000.
Bitcoin's price is quite dependent on the size of its mining network, since the larger the network is, the more difficult – and thus more costly – it is to produce new bitcoins. As a result, the price of bitcoin has to increase as its cost of production also rises. The Bitcoin mining network's aggregate processing power is known as the "hash rate," referring to the number of times per second the network can attempt to complete a hashing puzzle necessary before a block can be added to the blockchain. As of October 23, 2019, the network reached a record high 114 quintillion hashes per second.
Bitcoin is a digital currency created in January 2009. It follows the ideas set out in a whitepaper by the mysterious and pseudonymous developer Satoshi Nakamoto, whose true identity has yet to be verified. Bitcoin offers the promise of lower transaction fees than traditional online payment mechanisms and is operated by a decentralized authority, unlike government-issued currencies.
There are no physical bitcoins, only balances kept on a public ledger in the cloud, that – along with all Bitcoin transactions – is verified by a massive amount of computing power. Bitcoins are not issued or backed by any banks or governments, nor are individual bitcoins valuable as a commodity. Despite it not being legal tender, Bitcoin charts high on popularity, and has triggered the launch of hundreds of other virtual currencies collectively referred to as Altcoins.
Understanding Bitcoin
Bitcoin is a type of cryptocurrency. Balances of Bitcoin tokens are kept using public and private "keys," which are long strings of numbers and letters linked through the mathematical encryption algorithm that was used to create them. The public key (comparable to a bank account number) serves as the address which is published to the world and to which others may send bitcoins. The private key (comparable to an ATM PIN) is meant to be a guarded secret and only used to authorize Bitcoin transmissions. Bitcoin keys should not be confused with a Bitcoin wallet, which is a physical or digital device which facilitates the trading of Bitcoin and allows users to track ownership of coins. The term "wallet" is a bit misleading, as Bitcoin's decentralized nature means that it is never stored "in" a wallet, but rather decentrally on a blockchain.
Style notes: according to the official Bitcoin Foundation, the word "Bitcoin" is capitalized in the context of referring to the entity or concept, whereas "bitcoin" is written in the lower case when referring to a quantity of the currency (e.g. "I traded 20 bitcoin") or the units themselves. The plural form can be either "bitcoin" or "bitcoins." Bitcoin is also commonly abbreviated as "BTC."
How Bitcoin Works
Bitcoin is one of the first digital currencies to use peer-to-peer technology to facilitate instant payments. The independent individuals and companies who own the governing computing power and participate in the Bitcoin network, also known as "miners," are motivated by rewards (the release of new bitcoin) and transaction fees paid in bitcoin. These miners can be thought of as the decentralized authority enforcing the credibility of the Bitcoin network. New bitcoin is being released to the miners at a fixed, but periodically declining rate, such that the total supply of bitcoins approaches 21 million. Currently, there are roughly 3 million bitcoins which have yet to be mined. In this way, Bitcoin (and any cryptocurrency generated through a similar process) operates differently from fiat currency; in centralized banking systems, currency is released at a rate matching the growth in goods in an attempt to maintain price stability, while a decentralized system like Bitcoin sets the release rate ahead of time and according to an algorithm.
Bitcoin mining is the process by which bitcoins are released into circulation. Generally, mining requires the solving of computationally difficult puzzles in order to discover a new block, which is added to the blockchain. In contributing to the blockchain, mining adds and verifies transaction records across the network. For adding blocks to the blockchain, miners receive a reward in the form of a few bitcoins; the reward is halved every 210,000 blocks. The block reward was 50 new bitcoins in 2009 and is currently 12.5. As more and more bitcoins are created, the difficulty of the mining process – that is, the amount of computing power involved – increases. The mining difficulty began at 1.0 with Bitcoin's debut back in 2009; at the end of the year, it was only 1.18. As of October 2019, the mining difficulty is over 12 trillion. Once, an ordinary desktop computer sufficed for the mining process; now, to combat the difficulty level, miners must use expensive, complex hardware like Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC) and more advanced processing units like Graphic Processing Units (GPUs). These elaborate mining processors are known as "mining rigs."
One bitcoin is divisible to eight decimal places (100 millionths of one bitcoin), and this smallest unit is referred to as a Satoshi. If necessary, and if the participating miners accept the change, Bitcoin could eventually be made divisible to even more decimal places.
What's a Bitcoin Worth?
In 2017 alone, the price of Bitcoin rose from a little under $1,000 at the beginning of the year to close to $19,000, ending the year more than 1,400% higher. More recently, the cryptocurrency has declined in value and more-or-less plateaued, save for a few periods of relatively lower price figures (the early portion of 2019, when prices hovered around $3500) and relatively higher ones (June and July of 2019, when prices briefly peaked at over $13,000). As of October 2019, Bitcoin seems to have found a new price point in the range of $8,000 to $9,000.
Bitcoin's price is quite dependent on the size of its mining network, since the larger the network is, the more difficult – and thus more costly – it is to produce new bitcoins. As a result, the price of bitcoin has to increase as its cost of production also rises. The Bitcoin mining network's aggregate processing power is known as the "hash rate," referring to the number of times per second the network can attempt to complete a hashing puzzle necessary before a block can be added to the blockchain. As of October 23, 2019, the network reached a record high 114 quintillion hashes per second.
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