50 Insane Facts About Bitcoin
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Ever since its creation in 2008, virtual currency Bitcoin has been the subject of endless rumor, review, and speculation. But despite a steady stream of naysayers and problems with theft, the Little Crypto-Currency That Could continues to chug along. Like many phenomena that capture the public’s attention, Bitcoin is surrounded by characters straight out of tall tales—lucky stiffs, the seemingly cursed, and sketchy ne’er-do-wells scheming to take other people’s hard-earned money.
Full of shadowy mystery and bright promise, Bitcoin continues to attract press, plaudits, and pessimism even as the modern marketplace struggles with the potential impact of a currency whose existence, let alone functionality, is hard to pin down.
A large part of the Bitcoin mythos can be traced to its mysterious origins. The person who created the world’s leading virtual currency is, perhaps appropriately, a cipher. While Satoshi Nakamoto has long been acknowledged as the creator of Bitcoin, next to nothing is known about the identity of the person (or persons) operating under this name, beyond the likelihood of his vast wealth. This hasn’t stopped Internet sleuths from putting some pretty advanced technology to work trying to shed some light on Nakamoto’s identity, but for now, the mists of time and technology continue to shield Bitcoin’s enigmatic creator.
Another aspect that sparks controversy and conjecture is the set of physical and financial limitations attached to a currency that’s anything but concrete. Thanks to a limitation built-into the core algorithm, only 21 million Bitcoins can ever be mined. That might seem like a relatively small number compared to other currencies, but since each block can be divided to eight or ten decimal points, fractional values can—and do—add up quickly.
The limitations may soon be tested more rigorously, as the currency will have its own ATMs popping up across the United States throughout 2014. Consumers who may not be familiar with it may soon be able to buy, sell, send, and spend Bitcoins at the local grocery or gas station, helping spread Bitcoin’s availability and making it seem a little less arcane to John and Jane Q. Public.
While greater familiarity will no doubt help educate users about Bitcoin, the world’s leading virtual crypto-currency will likely continue to generate controversy and conjecture long after the last Bitcoin is mined in or around the year 2140.
PS. Checkout our post on referral programs that payout in bitcoin!
Transcript: 50 Insane Facts about Bitcoins
There’s no denying that the world’s journalists love Bitcoin at the moment. The rises and falls of the virtual currency are being well documented. But if you’re feeling a tad overwhelmed by it all, here’s 50 facts that’ll fill you in on everything Bitcoin-related.
Bitcoin through the years… How the currency began, and what’s happened to it since.
- Satoshi Nakamoto – The pseudonym of the creator(s) of Bitcoin.
- 2008 – The year Bitcoin was invented by Satoshi Nakamoto.
- January 12, 2009 – The first Bitcoin transaction. Satoshi Hal Finney..
- 1 million – The number of Bitcoins thought to have been mined by Satoshi Nakamoto in the currency’s early days.
- Mystery Man? – Numerous attempts have been made to find out the true identity of Bitcoin’s creator(s).
- Five years – The time taken for a single Bitcoin to go from $0 to $1,000 (£613).
- 3,600 – The approximate number of new Bitcoins ‘mined’ each day.
- Litecoins – A competitor to Bitcoin, which uses different ‘tech’ for mining.
- More than 20,000 – The number of computers working at mining new Bitcoins.
- 21 million – The maximum number of Bitcoins that can ever exist.
- 2041 – The year the last remaining Bitcoins will be supposedly mined.
- 64% – The amount of Bitcoins sitting in accounts that haven’t been touched since the currency began.
- 31,000 – The number of lines of computer code behind Bitcoin.
- Coins – Physical Bitcoins began to be marketed in 2011 by a company in the United States.
- Shut down – The minting company behind physical Bitcoins shut up shop after the US Treasury got wind of its actions.
- Alderney – The first jurisdiction to announce plans to mint physical Bitcoins.
- History – Unlike regular money, each Bitcoin has a detailed history, which makes it hard to fake or replicate.
Winners and losers: Some people have gained plenty; some have lost a small fortune.
- Theft: A journalist from Bloomberg was given a Bitcoin on live TV in December 2013. It was promptly stolen by a viewer.
- £4.6m ($7.5m) – The value of Bitcoins stored on James Howells’ hard drive when he accidentally threw it away, sending it to a Welsh landfill in 2013.
- £17 ($28) – The original value of Norwegian Kristoffer Koch’s Bitcoin investment, which by the time he remembered he’d bought it, was worth more than £500,000.
- Jet Li – The actor whose charity received a donation in Bitcoin, bringing the currency to the attention of China.
- WikiLeaks – The whistleblowing website turned to Bitcoins for donations after the leading money transfer companies refused to deal with it.
Bitcoin’s place in the world: The currency has had its ups and downs, and isn’t everyone’s favorite thing.
- Vancouver – This Canadian city boasted the world’s first Bitcoin cash machine.
- Exchange rates – Some leading currency exchange websites list Bitcoin alongside other currencies.
- Thailand – This country became the first to outlaw Bitcoin. It did so in July 2013.
- Argentina – This country saw a surge in Bitcoin when its own currency saw massive inflation.
- 80% – The percentage of its value Bitcoin has been known to lose in just a few days.
- Gold – A single Bitcoin briefly became more valuable than an ounce of gold in November 2013.
- $1,250 (£764) – Bitcoin’s all time high value, which it hit in November 2013.
- $7 (£4.30) – Bitcoin’s lowest value in recent years. It sank to this level in August 2011.
- 4 cents (2p): The value of a Bitcoin in early 2010, a year after its launch.
The Silk Road: This secretive website was used to trade all manner of illegal items before being shut down – it primarily used Bitcoins for transactions.
- Dread Pirate Roberts – The pseudonym of the operator of the Silk Road website, who reportedly took seven percent of all of its Bitcoin sales.
- Ross Ulbricht – The man arrested on suspicion of running the Silk Road, and amassing a fortune in Bitcoin through its illegal activities.
- 5% – The percentage of the world’s Bitcoin owned by the FBI, following the closure and seizure of the Silk Road online marketplace.
- 80% – The amount of Dread Pirate Roberts’ Bitcoins not yet seized by American authorities.
- 5% – 5% – The percentage of Bitcoin’s economy believed to have been made up by the Silk Road before it was closed down.
Spending power: An idea of what you can and can’t do with your Bitcoins.
- Lamborghini – The first car company to accept Bitcoins in exchange for cars.
- Kreuzberg – A part of Berlin that has established itself as a Bitcoin-friendly shopping area.
- 2012 – The year Manchester’s first Bitcoin-friendly retailer – an average corner shop – began using the currency.
- Space – The furthest place you can travel using Bitcoins thanks to Virgin Galactic.
- Mel B – The former Spice Girl became the first musical artist accepting Bitcoin as payment for her music.
- Limousines – Can be hired in certain areas of the US using Bitcoins.
- Pizzas – Can be bought in the Netherlands using Bitcoins.
- China – Banned banks from trading in Bitcoin in December 2013.
- 200,000 – The lowest amount of Bitcoins that are used in transactions each day.
- 10,000 – The number of Bitcoins one man swapped for a pizza in 2010. Those 10,000 Bitcoins would be worth more than $7m (£4.28m) in December 2013.
- Black Friday: More than 200 businesses held a Bitcoin ‘Black Friday’ sale event in the 2013.
- House sale: A man in New York put his house up for sale in December 2013 for $799,000 (£488,000)… or the equivalent in Bitcoins.
- OKCupid: This dating site allows you to meet your potential loved one – it also accepts Bitcoins.
- Sandwiches: Can be bought with Bitcoins at a single branch of Subway in the United States.
So if you’re thinking of speculating on the Bitcoin buzz, re-read these fifty facts and see whether the pros outweigh the cons.
Sources
- The Billion-Dollar Bitcoin Roller Coaster – america.aljazeera.com
- Bitcoins – Widely Known and Widely Misunderstood – articles.latimes.com
- James Howells Searches for Hard Drive – bbc.co.uk
- Bitcoin Virtual Currency Breaks $1,000 Mark – bbc.co.uk
- Bitcoin Sinks after China Restricts Yuan Exchanges – bbc.co.uk
- Bitcoin – Experts Clash over the Crypto-Currency – bbc.co.uk
- China Bans Banks from Handling Bitcoin Trade – bbc.co.uk
- World’s First Bitcoin ATM Opens – bbc.co.uk
- Alderney Bitcoin Currency – bbc.co.uk
- Five Held over Bitcoin Scams – bbc.co.uk
- Bitcoin Now Tops $1,200 – blogs.wsj.com
- Buy My House in Bitcoin – blogs.wsj.com
- Bitcoin Price Zooms through $1,000 – cbsnews.com
- Bitcoin Banned in Thailand – cnbc.com
- Bitcoin Hits the Road – cnbc.com
- Now You Can Buy Cars with Bitcoin – dailymail.co.uk
- The Bitcoin Pizza Purchase – forbes.com
- The Other Side of the Bitcoin – independent.co.uk
- The Banking Industry Starts Closing in on Bitcoins – latimes.com
- Corner Shop Embraces Bitcoin – mancunianmatters.co.uk
- Mel B to Accept Bitcoins – melaniebrown.com
- Virgin Galactic to Accept Bitcoin – metro.co.uk
- 8 Things You Can Buy with Bitcoins – money.cnn.com
- Betting on the Bitcoin Buzz – nasdaq.com
- Are Physical Bitcoins Legal – news.cnet.com
- The Crypto-Currency – newyorker.com
- Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht Denied Bail – telegraph.co.uk
- Bitcoin Price Plummets – theguardian.com
- Majority of Silk Road’s Bitcoins May Remain Unseized – theguardian.com
- Bitcoin – The Berlin Streets Where You Can Shop with Virtual Money – theguardian.com
- Bitcoin Hits New High – theguardian.com
- The Race to Unmask Bitcoin’s Creator(S) – Thewire.com
- Five Surprising Facts about Bitcoin – washingtonpost.com
- XE Live Exchange Rates – xe.com
- History – en.bitcoin.it
Greyhawk
March 20, 2014
Lamborghini never accepted Bitcoin for that car. They got US dollars.
Cascacius physical bitcoins are not made by a company, but by a single dude in his basement. Also he went all “fuck the feds” and restarted sales again.
“Each bitcoin” can’t have a detailed history, because there is no concept of a coin as a singular unit in the protocol. There are only accounts and values.
Regarding Kreuzberg it is disingenious to call the precinct bitcoin friendly, when the entire so called Bitcoin Kiez consists of a single street corner.
Considering that no one has ever traveled with Virgin Galactic to space yet, space does not really seem to be a valid options as the furthest you can go with bitcoin (in other news I am selling hyperspeed flights to Alpha Centauri for Bitcoin, so you might want to add that. Wait, what do you mean I don’t really fly there? Well, so doesn”t Virgin)
The 10000 BTC pizza was actually two pizzas and a 2l bottle of Coke
You might want to replace the word “facts” with “things I heard somewhere but didn’t really research, lol, wtf is journalistic integrity”
Mangalore Cafe (@mangalorecafe)
April 3, 2017
You know the world is doomed when play money becomes real. that is what bitcoin is. It was gamer’s money.
It has not real value its driven by the lack of talent.
We still have “coins” in various games which you can buy for dollars. This is how bitcoin evolved.
Nobody wants to talk about it because the backers of bitcoin who are the worlds biggest mafia and money launderers they sure are running the biggest propaganda on the internet after weed. Using the same people I guess who spread that bitcoin is what will save the world.
So this is how it evolved. People used to play games and you know how gamers they become a community and there there are gamers who own shops etc.
So there were these crazy gamers who gathered a lot of points either through pure talent and wasting their life gaming or by hacking.
They had too many points while there were other gamers who had not talent and/or no time. They needed points.
And as you can find in most games the creator of the game offers you to buy these “coins” by paying cash.
This is why such kind of gaming became free as the game creation companies were making more money with talentless gamers buying coins.
So that is how the ‘exchange value” of the first “coins” or the predecessor of bitcoins was set. by gaming companies.
So if you could buy 10000 coins for 10$ that was the exchange rate.
Then what happened is those with too many coins could actually give away the coins to their own clan to help them with buying weapons and armour(In those war strategy games)
So when this started then it crossed over to the real world.
That is the gamers with extra points simply sold them for money but lets say a dollar less than what the gaming company would charge.
This is how this virtual play money became a means of exchange and evolved to be bitcoin as we know it. This guy would take the dollars and buy something at the store. If the store was a gamer coffee shop and that guy played games too then he would accept gaming points as money cause he knew there would be enough talenless gamers who would buy these points for much more.
It was when some gamer created their own game they were not corporations but pretty good gamers themselves. They accepted a common currency to exchange their gaming points as they did not mind if people played 2 or 3 games most probably created by them.
This is when bitcoin was created. It was used online to replace people unofficially and very crudely using gamer money.
There were a lot of people using this gamer money so I guess the create of bitcoin though it was enough to start a common currency to buy and sell points across the gaming community.
He just started mining them in his basement But he made mining very difficult and at first only he did it. So people could not just go one mining. Basically mining is nothing but gaming and just like gamer points where you sit and the computer and keep gaming to “create” points here you just have a bitmining software doing it for you. Without you having to sit at the computer.
This makes bitcoin ever less valuable than gaming money. But none theless it succeeded. Among gamers who are not too bright i guess otherwise they would not waste their time gaming would the?
Its just appalling that these gamers would be able to take bitcoin mainstream.
They did but I guess with bakcers from the illegal market. Because they saw potential in this having a totally undetectable currecny that could be converted anytime to dollars because there are so many gamers backing it.
This is what bitcoin is its not money just play money