Cryptocurrency Blog

Sure, Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency. The blockchain was invented for Bitcoin, But bitcoin ISN’T the only cryptocurrency out there. As I write, there are over 8,000 different types of cryptocurrency in existence – some are variants of Bitcoin, while others are completely new, stand-alone cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is, of course, the granddaddy of them all, and it's fair to say that there wouldn't be any cryptocurrencies at all without Bitcoin. However, because Bitcoin is open source, ANYBODY (even YOU) can take the technology and start their own cryptocurrency. At this point I need to make clear that there are two different types of cryptocurrency you can create. One is a coin, the other is a token. There are some pretty big differences between them, so listen up. A coin (like Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin etc.) operates on its own blockchain. These cryptocurrencies have been started from scratch and are completely independent of each other. They act as money, and you can buy stuff w...

Bitcoin is fast becoming integrated into the everyday lives of people living in developing countries. With unstable and hyper-inflated national currencies, bitcoins are proving to be a much more viable solution to solving the financial woes of their citizens. Here are four reasons why Bitcoin has a massive appeal for the masses in developing countries: 1 – You Don’t Need Banks In developed countries, it’s relatively easy to sign up for bank accounts and credit cards. But in the developing world, it’s a vastly different story. It’s much harder to get credit and setting up a bank account is no walk in the park. But Bitcoin changes all that. With Bitcoin, you can save your own bitcoins yourself – all you need is a secure wallet to keep your digital money safe. 2 – Fast, Cheap and Borderless Payments With Bitcoin, you can send any amount of bitcoin to anyone in the world in a matter of minutes. When you send money through banks you not only pay those costly bank fees, you also need to wait...

Trading and investing may sound the same, but in reality, they are as different as day and night. Trading refers to a short-term method of trying to profit from buying and selling of bitcoins while investing refers to a long-term strategy where a buyer will hold on to their bitcoins for a long time and ride out any dips in the market price. The Bitcoin Trader The Bitcoin trader thrives on the exciting volatility of bitcoins. They’ll try to time the market and buy bitcoins when the price dips and then they’ll wait for the price to go up before they sell their bitcoins. Trading is a high-risk game because you’re betting for the price to go up or down. Not everyone can trade, however. The most successful traders are those who have nerves of steel and can detach their emotions from their trades. Traders don’t get scared of dips in the price because they are optimistic it’s going to go up again, sooner or later. They are looking to maximize their profits, too, so they’ll mostly invest a lum...

There are basically two general types of wallets to keep your bitcoins, and other cryptocurrencies, safe. There are cold wallets and hot wallets. In this article, you’ll find out the pros and cons of each type of wallet so you can make an informed decision when choosing which wallet to go for. Hot Wallets Hot wallets are called hot because they are connected to the Internet which generally means it’s easier for hackers to hack into and steal your valuable coins from you. Examples of hot wallets include those free wallets at your favorite bitcoin exchange website like Coinbase or Kraken, and mobile app wallets. Desktop wallets are another form of hot wallet, especially if you install it on a system that’s connected to the Internet. However, you do have control over your private keys, and you can encrypt your wallet to prevent hacking attempts. The only downside to desktop wallets is if your computer gets destroyed or stolen, then you can pretty much say goodbye to your bitcoins. There h...

Investing in highly volatile bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies is risky business. These currencies are all electronic or virtual in nature, and thus have no physical presence. They don’t even have intrinsic value. However, no one can deny that right now these cryptocurrencies are extremely valuable and those who invested in the early days, and held on to their investments, are living the high life now as multi-millionaires, and even billionaires! If you want to be like these wise investors sometime in the future, then follow these four investing strategies to increase your chances for success. 1 – Prepare For Volatility It’s basically a given for cryptocurrencies that they are going to be extremely volatile. One minute the price is sitting at five digits, and the next it’s at four or even three digits! It’s absolutely unpredictable, and if you don’t take its volatility seriously, you could get in a lot of trouble. You could panic and sell off your crypto so you can minimize your loss...

Bitcoin is the first successful cryptocurrency in history, and it became successful because of the many positive merits not found in traditional or fiat currency (this is your country’s national currency). In this article, you’ll find out about five advantages Bitcoin has over fiat currency. 1 – Bitcoin Is Decentralized Unlike fiat currency, Bitcoin is not controlled by any bank or government. No single entity controls or regulates the Bitcoin network, not even its founder Satoshi Nakamoto. Without a controlling entity, bitcoins are technically inflation-proof since no one can devalue its price by manipulating its supply. Only 21 million bitcoins will ever be mined or created, unlike fiat currency which is printed when the government sees fit to print more money.   2 – Extremely Easy To Use Opening bank accounts is not a simple thing to do. You’d have to go to your bank, wait in line, fill out forms, submit your IDs, etc. It’s a time-consuming process. But with Bitcoin, all you nee...

While many businesses have already joined the Bitcoin revolution by accepting bitcoin payments, many are still hesitant to make the jump. They are afraid that with Bitcoin’s volatility, they may end up essentially giving their products or services for free. What this means is that they think they are going to get shortchanged if the price in bitcoin drops and would, therefore, lose all their profits. But this is absolutely not the case! In this article, you’ll find out exactly why you shouldn’t miss out on accepting bitcoin payments. 1 – Instant Bitcoin Conversion To Your Local Currency Bitcoin’s volatility is a business owner’s biggest concern. But with payment gateways like BitPay and Coinbase, you can easily bypass Bitcoin’s volatility. These services will instantly convert your bitcoin payments into your local currency which you’ll receive in your bank account the following business day. This means that if your customer paid you $100 worth of bitcoins, then you’re going to get exac...

Before Bitcoin prices reached 5 digits, many people, freelancers mostly, were already getting paid in bitcoin. But now that prices have reached all-time highs, people are thinking of joining the fray and getting paid for their services or products, not in fiat currency, but in bitcoins. The big question is, is it worth it?   Some may say it’s not worth it because bitcoin is extremely volatile. One minute the price is at a certain amount and the next five minutes, it’s down by several hundred dollars. If you’ve put a lot of effort into your work, then you might feel faint at the thought of losing your hard-earned cash in a matter of minutes. Of course, this scenario will only happen if you decide to hold on to your bitcoins instead of exchanging it for your local currency at your favorite cryptocurrency exchange.   Imagine this second scenario though: what if you held on to your bitcoins and the price suddenly jumped to twice the original price? Then you’d feel like you’ve won ...

To most people, Bitcoin can seem like a financial concept made in a parallel universe. Yes, it’s a very complex and complicated concept, but it doesn’t mean it’s impossible to learn it. When you think about it, many people started off with no idea about bitcoins and how it worked. But look at them now, they’re probably investing left and right in various cryptocurrencies like pros and possibly profiting very nicely as well! So, in this article, we’ll try to simplify how Bitcoin works using a betting game analogy: Imagine playing a betting game with your friends, but none of you have any money on hand, so you decide to use a ledger to record the transactions, like your winnings and losses. But you don’t want to put your trust on one friend to record everything, so a lot of you decide to make a ledger simultaneously. This way, at the end of each game, those who kept ledgers can compare their records to see if it all evens out—which means that cheating the system would be virtually imposs...

Blockchain is the technology that makes Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies very secure. It’s an open-source and distributed database that is stored in nodes or computers within the network. When new transactions or blocks are added to the blockchain, it will automatically update itself. Here are five very interesting facts about this ultra-modern technology. 1 – It’s Tamper-Proof Once an entry has been added onto the blockchain, it will be nearly impossible to remove or alter it later. If you want to alter an entry, you’d have to basically alter all the transactions that came after it. Doing this is mathematically impossible, so even genius fraudsters would have to look elsewhere to steal bitcoins without too much effort. Being tamper-proof is also the reason bitcoin payments are final and irreversible. 2 – It’s 100% Transparent Anyone with access to the blockchain can see all the transactions that have ever occurred in the past. You can even look up the first ever block (block 0) that...

There are many different kinds of cryptocurrency scams that are victimizing people who are new to the crypto world. Con artists prey on those who don’t know the difference between a legit crypto platform and a fake one, who don’t know a Ponzi scheme from a legitimate affiliate program. These scammers fool people into thinking that their well-designed websites give them a semblance of legitimacy, but on closer inspection, these sites won’t pass muster. Here are some giant red flags you should be aware of: 1 – Website Has No SSL Certificate It’s very important for a website that deals with cryptocurrencies to have an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate installed. Websites with no SSL only display HTTP before their domain names and websites with SSL show HTTPS. Many scam websites are here today, gone tomorrow types of sites, which means once they’ve scammed a certain number of people, they’ll shut down that site and move on to a fresh domain. It’s quite easy to transfer website files f...

When Bitcoin launched in 2009 the promise was that it would allow financial transactions on a peer to peer network without the need for any financial institutions or government control. A lot of people that knew about it at the time were very excited about the possibilities while others were somewhat skeptical. The digital currency was actually a secondary consideration. It was the blockchain technology that so excited the creators and those that were part of the peer to peer community. But the Bitcoin currency has turned out to be a lot better than was expected. There are several reasons for its significant growth in popularity. Transactions are Private The concept with Bitcoin is that it was totally anonymous. Anyone could make a transaction from anywhere to anywhere in the world and nobody would know who was involved. These days to use Bitcoin exchanges to make transactions you do need to provide some personal details but it is still a lot more anonymous than other financial...

Since Bitcoin was launched in 2009 over 80,000 businesses have adopted it. The reason that these businesses and many more, like dealing in Bitcoin is because it offers them some incredible benefits. In this article we will examine all of the major benefits that including Bitcoin as part of a payment system works so well. The Risk of Fraud is much lower When a business allows their customers to use Bitcoins to make payments it is an advantage to the buyer because they do not have to share any of their confidential financial details such as debit or credit card numbers. With conventional payment methods a business usually stores the customer’s financial data for future transactions. This is fine if their systems are secure and they do not suffer from any data breaches where cyber criminals can steal their information. Trading in Bitcoins is really a form of digital cash and hackers cannot intercept a Bitcoin transaction. Also this protects your identity and in the event of a da...