If you've been involved with cryptocurrencies for any amount of time, chances are you've either already talked to friends and family about it or will sometime soon. From my experience so far, I've mostly encountered people that don't know much about it at all and typically say they don't have the money or that it's too late for them since the price is already so high. It's understandable why a lot of people would think this way, especially since most people don't have a frame of reference of where the cryptocurrency market is at and usually don't realize you can buy a fraction of a bitcoin (as little as $1 dollar on sites like Coinbase). Here's some information and statistics to help you if you're new to the space or trying to help others get into this exciting new crypto world.
A Bitcoin can be split up into 8 decimals with the smallest being 0.00000001 - these fractions of a bitcoin are called satoshis. To put this into perspective, one US dollar is about 0.00013514 at today's Bitcoin price (~$7,400 USD).
0.10000000 = Ten Million Satoshis
0.01000000 = One Million Satoshis
0.00100000 = One Hundred Thousand Satoshis
0.00010000 = Ten Thousand Satoshis
0.00001000 = One Thousand Satoshis
0.00000100 = One Hundred Satoshis
0.00000010 = Ten Satoshis
0.00000001 = One Satoshi
For example, if you bought $700.00 worth of Bitcoin and the price at the time you bought it was $7,000.00, you would have 0.1 BTC which is ten million satoshis. If you had 0.025 BTC you could say you have 2.5 million satoshis.
- Only about 1% of the population of Earth currently uses Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies and more and more people are joining the crypto space by the day. Coinbase, the most popular place to buy Bitcoin in the United States, is having around half a million people create accounts per month right now. The market for Bitcoin is gigantic and is really just starting to take off in a major way this year. 2018 will likely be Bitcoin's biggest year yet as we start to see mass adoption.
- The Bitcoin market cap as a whole currently makes up about 0.1% of the global currency market. If even 1% of the money from gold investments came into Bitcoin, each Bitcoin would be worth 1 million US dollars.
- CME Group, the world's largest derivatives exchange group is launching Bitcoin futures in Q4 of 2017 or early 2018. This is a big deal and means institutional money will be pouring into Bitcoin soon. CME Group handles over a quadrillion dollars in contracts annually!
- Ledger X just launched recently allowing clients with 10 million USD or more to invest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
- Bitcoin has consistently grown over the last five years, out performing any stock in the stock market by a landslide. Just one year ago (November 7, 2016) Bitcoin was trading for about $700.00 and today it is trading for over $7,000. That's an increase of 900% in one year or ten times your original investment.
- The mainstream media is starting to cover cryptocurrencies daily now and is hyping up and recommending buying Bitcoin. The hype is real!
In conclusion, Bitcoin is just getting started in my opinion and has a long way to go from here. It is a disruptive technology that has a real world need and is just starting to become popular to the general public. We are in early days so keep that in mind if you think you're late to the party. Will there be obstacles and price volatility? Absolutely. That doesn't mean Bitcoin won't continue to be the honey badger of money and continue on its uptrend as the masses adopt it across the globe. Obviously there are risks involved like any investment and no guarantees, but it appears that Bitcoin has a very bright future if you can stomach its volatility as it matures.
Where do you think Bitcoin will go from here? Do you think it's in a bubble or do you think its going to the moon? Let me know in the comments below and thanks for reading!
*This is not financial advice and there are risks involved like any investment. Do your own research and only invest money you can afford to lose.
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