I have committed to writing a free ebook on Cryptocurrency for those who want a simple understanding to Cryptocurrency. I will be posted snippets of content here on stemmit please feel free to add additional content if what I am saying is not clear enough for the newbs.
With that being said let's get started ...
Revolution Time – An Introduction Online Digital Cash
You have probably heard someone talking about Bitcoin, Digital Currency or maybe even BlockChain.
You might have heard that this is new money and you should be investing in it or from a negative side that it is just something that will pass and don’t pay it any attention “Normally you will hear this from someone who doesn't understand it” or someone who fears this technology because they don’t want you to invest in it for reason that may financial hurt their business model.
Remember that in most cases when people don’t understand something they will talk negatively about things that they don’t understand.
In this post, I am going to help you navigate the waters in simple and clear terms once you are done with this mini-course you will have a full understanding of what is Cryptocurrency and why you should be investing in it.
It is my mission to educate as many people on the potential of this new form of money.
Word of warning: Dismiss this information at your own risk.
What Is Cryptocurrency?
This is one of the most frequently asked questions out there. What is cryptocurrency?
I would like you to think of a very simple concept, think digital cash.
Cryptocurrency is another form digital or basically alternate currency that don’t have a physical form nor is it controlled by any government it’s value is solely determined by the market supply and demand. It uses something called Cryptography to ensure that your transaction is secure.
Most people today you are using some form of digital currency although it is backed by a piece of paper and it is controlled by the government and central institution called banks … Think Debit Card.
Ok, you are probably thinking so why should you care?
Well, Cryptocurrency is just the beginning it is just an application built to run on something called BlockChain technology.
The first successful cryptocurrency emerged from the application called Bitcoin, by an anonymous founder called Satoshi Nakamoto.
He realized there was a problem with commerce on the internet, in his paper he writes about the issue with relying on financial institutions serving as trusted third parties to process electronic payments (Digital Cash).
Bitcoin started out very slow in 2009 the price of a Bitcoin was around at $.08 BitCoin for one bitcoin at the time of writing this post Bitcoin price is $4300 it is down from its record-breaking price of $5,000 across all markets.
Just think if you had purchased just $100 dollars’ worth of Bitcoin when it first got started.
Bitcoin was then followed by the birth of other types of cryptocurrencies some competing against Bitcoin.
I would like to make it clear Bitcoin was not created by the creator for the purpose of investment it was created to solve the 3rd party trust issue when doing transactions online.
Here is an excerpt of his whitepaper
Commerce on the Internet has come to rely almost exclusively on financial institutions serving as trusted third parties to process electronic payments. While the system works well enough for most transactions, it still suffers from the inherent weaknesses of the trust based model. Completely non-reversible transactions are not really possible since financial institutions cannot avoid mediating disputes. The cost of mediation increases transaction costs, limiting the minimum practical transaction size and cutting off the possibility for small casual transactions, and there is a broader cost in the loss of ability to make non-reversible payments for nonreversible services. With the possibility of reversal, the need for trust spreads. Merchants must be wary of their customers, hassling them for more information than they would otherwise need. A certain percentage of fraud is accepted as unavoidable. These costs and payment uncertainties can be avoided in person by using physical currency, but no mechanism exists to make payments over a communications channel without a trusted party
I don't want to overwhelm you at this point look for my next post
Understanding how Cryptocurrencies work