Bitcoin: 8 questions and answers
Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin. It’s everywhere right now. On the news, in social media and in conversations. It’s probably the main topic during lunchtime at kindergarten, besides what icy pole flavour is the best.
Okay so what is it? We decided to do some quick research with the most obvious questions we could think of. Like:
1. Is it a real coin?
No. Although you can buy physical bitcoins of all types, these are not the bitcoin everyone is talking about.
2. Okay so what is bitcoin then?
A Google search of ‘what is bitcoin’ will give you this dictionary meaning, “a type of digital currency in which encryption techniques are used to regulate the generation of units of currency and verify the transfer of funds, operating independently of a central bank.”.
So, basically it’s a digital currency that can be transferred online and without the need of a bank or third party. Bitcoin is both the currency you can own and the way in which it is transferred. An easy way to say this is there is bitcoin-the-token and bitcoin-the-network.
3. When and how was it created?
In 2008, a bloke by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto proposed the idea of bitcoin and in January 2009 the first bitcoins were issued. From there bitcoin was exchanged the way it was intended in Nakamoto’s proposal.
4. Nakamoto must be pretty famous by now, what does he look like?
Here’s the thing, in 2011 Nakamoto left the bitcoin scene as he had, “moved on to other things”. No one knows who Nakamoto is or was and no photos of him exist.
5. So how much is one bitcoin worth right now?
As of 13 August 2019 – one single bitcoin is worth $16,744.43 AUD.
6. That’s a lot. Has it always been that expensive?
Absolutely not. During it’s first year in 2009, bitcoin was not traded on any exchanges and so technically was worth nothing. In 2010 bitcoin never topped $1 USD.
The bitcoin value rose gradually in the following years to around $800 per coin at the end of 2016. Then things got silly.
The market exploded in 2017 and on December 11 it peaked at the price of $17,500 USD!
7. Well this sounds great, how do I get some bitcoin?
Let’s be clear that here at Lockwoods we are not suggesting bitcoin is something you should or should not invest in. We are purely answering some questions we were curious about ourselves and thought our readers may have similar questions.
As it stands right now you can find articles both positive and negative about the current state of bitcoin and what it may do in the future.
8. Yes I understand. Bitcoin sure is interesting. Got any other amazing facts about it?
Finding mind-blowing facts about bitcoin is easy, here’s a few we found from this post on techweez.com:
- Bitcoin value has multiplied 879,999 times from 2010 to 2017
- 1% of the Bitcoin community controls 99% of the world’s wealth
- The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) owns 1.5% of the world’s Bitcoins
- In May 2010, 10,000 Bitcoins would get you two Pizzas. In May 2017, 1 Bitcoin was worth 20 million Pizzas
- In 2016, someone accidentally sent $137,000 worth of Bitcoins instead of $5 with no way to get it back