Interesting Facts You Might Not Know About Bitcoin
Interesting Facts You Might Not Know About Bitcoin Pixabay

Bitcoin is undoubtedly the most popular form of electronic money. When people hear others talk about cryptocurrency, Bitcoin hits their minds. However, there are facts you may not know about this cryptocurrency. Here are facts you might want to know about this virtual currency.

Processing Power

One of the initial ways people used to get Bitcoin was through mining. Bitcoin mining is an expensive process that requires significant investment in time, money, and electricity. You use specialized servers to mine Bitcoin. Having a computer that processes data faster means you can have a block included in the blockchain more quickly. And this can earn you more Bitcoins.

Mysterious Bitcoin Creator

An entity called Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin back in 2009. After that, Satoshi vanished, and people have not heard about him since 2010. Like mystery shrouds Satoshi’s identity, nobody knows whether he’s dead or alive. People communicated with him through forums and emails only. However, Satoshi has a Bitcoin wallet holdings 980,000 Bitcoins. That means he is among the wealthiest individuals globally.

The Satoshi

People call the smallest Bitcoin unit a Satoshi to show respect to Bitcoin’s creator. As of April 2019, the value of one Satoshi was around 0.00005 U.S. dollars. And this value is meager since a person needs around a hundred million Satoshis to have a Bitcoin. That’s according to the price of this cryptocurrency. However, Bitcoin price fluctuates wildly. That means you need around 15,800 Satoshis to make one dollar.

Losing Bitcoins

When a person losses a Bitcoin address, they lose their unique identity. Bitcoin address is also called a private key. That means when you lose this address; you also lose the Bitcoins you have in the wallet. A significant percentage of Bitcoin addresses are currently ghosts. That means many people have lost Bitcoin addresses so far. As such, they can’t access or use their Bitcoin wallets.

Bitcoin Ban

Some countries like America and Canada have accepted Bitcoin. However, nations like Iceland, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Bangladesh have banned Bitcoin use completely. Countries like Iran, Thailand, and India have asked their citizens to use cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin carefully. However, they have not banned them altogether. That means such countries do not accept Bitcoin as a legal tender.

Bitcoin Limitation

Bitcoin’s supply has a cap of 21 million. That means the world can’t have more than this number of Bitcoins in circulation. Currently, miners have generated a significant amount of Bitcoin. According to Bitcoin’s creator, all miners will have Bitcoins to mine until 2140. That’s because of the way blockchain rewards miners.

Bitcoin network rewards miners with 12.5 bitcoins whenever they add a block into the blockchain. And this reward reduces by half every four years. Thus, the amount the miners get as their prize reduces every four years.

Power Consumption

Ireland uses around 5,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity every year. All farms that mine Bitcoin consume around 60 terawatt-hours of electricity together. That’s around 6x1010 kilowatt-hours and the most significant power amount. Entirely, Ireland uses less electricity than all Bitcoin mining companies combined. Ireland has 84,421 square kilometers, and it’s the second-most populated European city.

Supercomputers

The Summit is the fastest supercomputer in the world, operating at 122.3 petaflops. That’s a quadrillion floating-point operations within a second, while the entire Bitcoin network has a processing power of around 80,704, 290 petaflops. However, supercomputers perform several things while the Bitcoin network adds new blocks to the blockchain.

Final Thoughts

These are top facts some people don’t know about Bitcoin. If interested in trading or investing in this virtual currency, take your time to find out how it works. Also, use a reliable platform like Brexit Trader. That way, you can ensure the safety of your Bitcoin. Perhaps, you can register to make a successful bitcoin profit and start trading this virtual currency.