Origins And Future With Bitcoin: Simply Explained

If you have been following the crypto news, then you are aware of Bitcoin and the leaps and bounds it has been making in the last few weeks. And thanks to its rising value every day, it might just become a legal tender in the not-so-distant future. Already, some countries like Japan and the USA are accepting Bitcoin payments in online and offline stores to buy Walmart gift card, among other similar gift cards and products.

So you might be thinking, where did this super volatile cryptocurrency crop out from? And where is it headed to? If you want to know all the details about Bitcoin’s origin and future, read on as we discuss these aspects in detail! Let’s get started!

Origin Of Bitcoin

The Bitcoin white paper was released by Satoshi Nakamoto, an unknown individual or group of individuals who created the first Bitcoin network in January 2009. The first commercial transaction of Bitcoin occurred in 2010 in the hands of Laszlo Hanyecz, a programmer, who bought two pizzas with 10,000 Bitcoins.

However, promptly around this time, the creator, Nakamoto, disappeared after handing over the Bitcoin control code to Gavin Anderson, the now lead developer of Bitcoin Foundation. It is believed that Nakamoto mined almost 1 million bitcoins before he vanished.

Between the years 2011-2012, Bitcoin’s price saw a lot of fluctuations – rising and falling drastically till 2013 when it started climbing at $13.30 to reach almost $770 by January 2014. While it did see a crash to $314 in the same year, it steadily rose in 2015 and made it to $998 in 2016.

In 2017, Bitcoin rose to $19,783.06, an all-time high before crashing to $13,000 in 2019 due to several hacks and frauds. However, Bitcoin was yet to make a comeback. At the onset of the pandemic in 2020, MicroStrategy, Square Inc, and PayPal started investing in Bitcoin, which slowly pushed its value.

The real turnaround occurred when Elon Musk tweeted about his investment in Bitcoin, shooting up the price of a single Bitcoin to $37,299 in just an hour. And on 20th October 2021, Bitcoin’s price rose to a new all-time high of $67,016, following the first Bitcoin ETF transaction in the United States.

Thus you can see how volatile Bitcoin’s value is – one day, it might be crashing, and the very next hour, it will be soaring above everyone’s expectations. So the question remains, what is the future of such a volatile currency? Let’s take a look.

Future Of Bitcoin

The future of Bitcoin is a little complicated. While it is being recognized as legal tender in several countries, in some places, there are concerns around how far it will roll. For example, China has already banned all cryptocurrencies, both trading, and mining, and this news brought forward a lot of debate. So, what is Bitcoin’s future?

For now, Bitcoin’s technology, the Blockchain, will allow people to take part in digital financial transactions without having to reveal their true identities – just use digital identities and you won’t even need to rely on any fiat currency or any intermediaries like banks and card providers!

However, some problems are being spotted which are both hard to ignore. The first problem is that any Bitcoin transaction is expensive, slow, and requires a lot of electricity to churn results, which is disastrous for the environment. Also, Bitcoin’s value fluctuation remains a question of grave concern for many.

But all hope is not lost. Engineers, researchers, and crypto experts are pouring into work on these problems and they are even coming up with several solutions. For example, crypto technology, the Blockchain, is slowly maturing and being farmed to give birth to newer, more stable currencies, like the stable coins. These coins are being backed by fiat currencies and might just be the answer to accessible digital payment for all.

Bitcoin’s future might seem uncertain yet it will turn around for good quite soon. According to Chakib Bouda, Bitcoin will become mainstream in the coming 10 years and will garner a very different reputation than it has at this moment.

While this mainstreaming will take time, there’s a lot of research going on to improve technology to save the ecosystem and increase the number of transactions handled. We are hopeful that Bitcoin will soon be accepted worldwide as a payment mechanism. Already newer currencies of Bitcoin like Bitcoin Gold and Bitcoin Cash are coming up which can handle faster transactions and without causing harm to the ecosystem!

And thanks to these innovations, Bitcoin’s price has been climbing steadily and according to experts might just hit a whopping $5 million per bitcoin by 2030! So if you wish to climb onto Bitcoin’s train, now might be the right time to do so!

Conclusion

Bitcoin might take a little time to stabilize and win over people all over the world but it will be a huge part of our future. Already it is being accepted to buy cards, shop in online and offline retail stores, and others. So if you wish to invest in Bitcoin, feel free to do so! Just make sure to invest after thorough research and you are good to go! Best of luck!