Bitcoins are a digital currency. Your computer can create them by solving problems that computers perform very quickly. Once created, they reside in the cloud (on the internet).
What is Bitcoin Mining?
Bitcoin mining is essentially bookkeeping. It’s keeping track of which addresses have how many bitcoins are assigned to them at any given time. Mining is performed by special software, and it requires special hardware called ASICs to actually solve the math problems for each block of transactions on the blockchain. Thus, you need two things to mine bitcoins: knowledge and computing power. There’s no real advantage if all you have is knowledge; you still need computing power. The more processing your machine can do, the more bitcoin it will generate for you. To learn more you can check out bitcoinstormapp.io
More Computing Power = More Bitcoins
This is because, as we said before, there’s no real advantage to mining with only knowledge. You still need the processing power to solve the math problems. Someone who has a massive amount of computing power can out-compete smaller miners and gain more bitcoins for himself by solving the blocks faster than everyone else.
So let’s list some of the best facts about bitcoin!
- There are nearly 33,896 Bitcoin ATMs around the world.
- 7 years ago if you had spent $100 on Bitcoins you would have over half a million dollars today.
- The Winklevoss twins are worth more than $1 billion because they bought Bitcoins when they were less than $10 each!
- Bitcoins have been stolen in huge quantities – over 1 million have been stolen from one marketplace alone.
- People have sold houses for bitcoins and at least one person has accepted them as payment for tuition to the university he attends!
- If you want to buy drugs, weapons, or other illicit items then you can go on one of the online black marketplaces and do so using Bitcoins.
- The inventor of Bitcoin has a whopping $7 million in Bitcoins that he plans to give away when they appreciate to $10,000 each!
- Satoshi Nakamoto – the mysterious inventor of Bitcoin – is believed to be holding onto an additional 1 million Bitcoins which could bring his total worth close to half a billion dollars!
- Bitcoins are not recognized by any country on the planet, which means you can technically operate a Bitcoin ATM from your laptop in someplace like Mexico!
- Your Bitcoin wallet isn’t insured by anybody – if someone hacks your Bitcoin storage then you could lose everything!
- In fact, Bitcoin “banks” have been hacked and millions of people’s wallets emptied!
- The total number of Bitcoins that will ever be created is 21 million (with almost 12 million currently ‘in circulation). This limit ensures that the value of each Bitcoin will only increase over time making them great stores of value.
- The Australian government has released a report showing that Bitcoin can be used by terrorists and criminals to launder money and purchase illegal goods online.
- In the USA you’re required to declare if you have more than $10,000 in cash if you’re crossing state borders! This rule does not apply to Bitcoins, however.
