This year, I thought of sharing snippets of information that I get to learn about. The first one that I’d like to share and talk to you about is  CRYPTOCURRENCY and BITCOIN. There is much talk about bitcoins and cryptocurrency. Of course, I also wanted to know and study what these were!

Ayoko ngang magpahuli! Plus I wanted to know why my husband was constantly borrowing my laptop to “mine”.

What I did was I watched Banking on Bitcoin on Netflix. Here’s a trailer:

What is Cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency is a virtual or digital currency protected with cryptography. This feature secures transactions that are made online. Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency developed by Satoshi Nakamoto back in 2009. It functions like a real money but does not come in printed form. It can be used to buy anything online like book a hotel, buy gadgets, equipment and a lot more. The transfer of funds is much easier and cheaper due to absence of extra fees for wire transfers (more to be said about that, but that was the original intention).

Here is a short video about BITCOINS:

Others trade it. Trading of bitcoin in different currencies occur in marketplaces called “bitcoin exchanges”. Some examples of these marketplaces are Bitfinex, Bitstamp and Coinbase, which is taking the lead.

Bitcoins are stored in the user’s computer or cloud storage. This serves as the “wallet” or “virtual bank account”. It is where bitcoins are being received or transferred, withdrawn or deposited. To transfer bitcoins, just use a mobile application or the computer.

It is not regulated by any institution like the government or bank. It is checked-and-balanced by different people on different computers. Everyone validates everyone else. This is where mining comes into the picture. Mining is basically checking if the ledgers are correct. As for regulation, governments of China, Japan and Australia are now considering to regulate the system and the currency. Others are seeing the possibility of adding tax to it.

Anonymity of the owner of bitcoin is another feature. All transactions that were ever made online using a bitcoin are stored in a ledger called the blockchain. Although transactions are recorded, the personal information of the users is anonymous. Names and addresses are not revealed. It only shows the wallet IDs of the users.

That’s my learning snippet for today! I hope I helped you, even in a little way, to learn more about Crypotocurrency and bitcoins.