"If you bought $5 of Bitcoin 7 years ago,You'd have $4.4 MILLION today
Bitcoin completely dominates over the USD after increasing almost 900,000 times in the last eight years.
Ever had a case where you wished you had bought something in the past that eventually went up significantly in value? Perhaps a plot in a low-value district which is now worth ten times more? Well, then you need to read how well Bitcoin investors have done so far.
Monday marked the seventh anniversary of what is said to be the first recorded instance of Bitcoins being used in a real-world transaction. Over the course of seven years, Bitcoin’s value has multiplied 879,999 times. If an investor had decided to spend five dollars on about 2,000 Bitcoins back then, that stake would be worth $4.4 million today. With $1,200 spent on some 480,000 Bitcoins, the investor would be worth at least $1.1 billion today.
At first, Bitcoin didn’t really catch on, and it was solely the domain of the early adopters. There were very few businesses which accepted Bitcoin as a payment method, and it was something which was almost frowned upon by most governments. As more and more businesses and governments accepted Bitcoin, it gradually went up in value, more and more people were starting to embrace the idea of a decentralized currency, and as more people jumped on board, the price began to rise. At the beginning of 2017, the value of Bitcoin spiked after gaining legitimacy in countries like Japan.
“Bitcoin is better than currency.” – Bill Gates
The main advantage of Bitcoin is that it is decentralized – meaning, there’s no central bank or government which controls it. This freedom is the main reason why Investors have come to see the currency as something of a safe-haven-asset in a problematic geopolitical world — and there’s been plenty of that in recent months in Europe, Russia, Brazil and the United States. There is also an additional advantage in Bitcoin – there is a mathematical limitation to the number of Bitcoins that can be created, which means – no printing money, so the rules of economy work perfectly. Where there is a limited supply of something, and the demand goes up, the price goes up along with it.
Pictured: Wences Casares Bitcoin Entrepreneur.
The Argentinian-born Casares has founded an internet service provider, a video game company, and a bank, plus he sits on the board of PayPal, but it’s Bitcoin that Casares says he’s dedicating the rest of his life to, and he now runs a startup called Xapo that stores Bitcoin. At a dinner organized by the cryptocurrency policy group Coin Center in New York last night, Casares delivered the keynote speech, including some advice about how to get into Bitcoin.
The formula, according to Casares? Take 1% or less of what you own, buy Bitcoin with it, and then forget about it for at least the next five years; ideally the next decade. “You either lose one percent of your net worth, which most people can take, or you make millions.” he told a room of cryptocurrency advocates at the Westin in Times Square.
Pictured: A Stack of Bitcoins.
Casares estimates the odds of Bitcoin failing completely and going to zero dollars at 20%. “If it fails, it will be worthless,” he says. “If it succeeds, in five to seven years a single Bitcoin will be worth more than a million dollars.” He puts the chances of success at greater than 50%. But even if one Bitcoin being worth a million dollars sounds like a far-fetched scenario, at the price it is at the day of writing this article (around $1200), even $5,000 worth for one Bitcoin could make a lot of Bitcoin investors a huge return. .
Casares has an interesting reply for those people who believe they have already “missed out” on the Bitcoin train and are afraid that they are joining too late. He said he’s seen peoplewho bought Bitcoin at high prices just a month ago have done “spectacularly well” by simply buying and holding. who bought Bitcoin at cheap prices—as low as $13 who lost money because they tried to trade their way to profits, while those high prices just a month ago have done “spectacularly well” by simply buying and holding.
If you think you’ve already missed out on Bitcoin, there is a new crypto-currency just slightly below Bitcoin in terms of volume and also much more secure than people think called “Ethereum”. In the last 6 months, it went up more than 5000% in value. Its price grew from $7 at the beginning of 2017 to over $450 in June 2017, and it’s not just plain luck. If Bitcoin is ruling the consumer world - Ethereum caught the attention of the corporate world, with companies such as Microsoft, Toyota, Intel, J.P Morgan as well as many others as official members of the EEA (Ethereum Enterprise Alliance). This acceptance by the corporate world gives a lot of legitimacy to Ethereum, and many people choose to invest both in Bitcoin and Ethereum in case only one of these cryptocurrencies rises in value.
With all the latest coverage in the news about the rise of the Cryptocurrency market, specifically Bitcoin and Ethereum being featured in the main headlines, you might want to be part of it as well. If you’re not quite sure where to start, keep reading. Everything you need to know to get started is right here. Crypto currencies, unlike what most people think, are not only bought by tech-savvy people who use words like “Mining” and “digital wallets”. Regular people with basic computer knowledge are also getting involved too.
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