I knew about cryptocurrency since 3 years ago. But at that time I was not interested to invest my money in it. I thought cryptocurrency was purely speculative and gambling. I hate gambling !
Till around a month ago, when I read an article about bitcoin prices that rose up to USD 6,000. That was really crazy, I thought ! I remained skeptical, but started to research to find out what those craziness all about. It didn't take long till I realized that all my thoughts about cryptocurrency were wrong !
Then, at early of November'17, I began to invest in crypto. At that time I started to invest around USD 7,500. Almost two weeks later my investment grew to be as below :
That’s quite a lot for me but it’s nothing compared with the future opportunities that possibly happened.
So now maybe you think that I started to love gambling & speculation because I made significant profit on it. Well, you are wrong ! Because till today I still hate gambling and avoid it as much as possible. So what made me change my mind ?
The Blockchain
When most people think about cryptocurrencies, their entire focus is on bitcoin. They are missing the forest for the trees when it comes to cryptocurrencies.
The truth is : Bitcoin is just part of a much, much bigger picture. Comparing blockchain with bitcoin similar like comparing Internet with Google. As we all know, google is just a platform that uses internet technology to run it. There are still many other platforms like amazon, ebay, paypal, facebook, alibaba, etc…. you named it ! Bitcoin also the same….. it’s nothing without blockchain technology.
The blockchain was initially developed in 2008 as an online network to track bitcoin payments. Each transaction record is called a block. A block is essentially a line of computer code. Below is a sample of a line code of transaction block :
36d5d11d8aaaa5a778defe871681c1859b62a96ede57d8080c70960701b98e0d
The above block of code is programmed to accept bitcoin as payment. After a block is verified, it’s added to the chain of previous blocks as below
36d5d11d8aaaa5a778defe871681c1859b62a96ede57d8080c70960701b98e0d
e023a3584a29015e3180bda549d2769993062d8983dc73d25adae10b50f48105
45337b01b621445afa836a1b264e0e739c8f430d2b239bf3d24d89743f96dc59
8991a3bbd965bb5d98dfc2d0f00a9da38081f5b18570b0f2dfd1ece874950cca
And so on……
so that's where the “blockchain” name comes from !
This blockchain is a bookkeeper adding entries into a “ledger”. But unlike company’s ledger, this “ledger” is public and online.
The blockchain is maintained by thousands (or even more) of in¬dependent computers. These computers constantly “talk” & synchronize each other, comparing transactions data to make sure the ledger is valid. Each individual computer connected to the network (called a node) must verify a transaction before it’s added to the chain. By storing data across its network, the blockchain eliminates many of the risks that come with storing data in a central location.
At this point, you might be asking : since the data is accessible to anyone on the network, hackers could get into it easily to change the transactions or do whatever they want to do ?
Well, it’s theoretically possible to hack the blockchain, but you would have to hack the majority of the com¬puters in the entire network simultaneously (more than 50 %). Suppose there are 10,000 node on the network, hackers should hack at least 5,001 node and change the blockchain data on all those hacked node. Sound difficult, right ? Well, there is an easier way to do it. Hackers could buy new 10,001 nodes and connect them all to the network, so now total nodes in the network are 20,001 and hackers control more than 50% nodes of the network !
But……
That would require a massive investment of capital. GoBitcoin website estimates that it would cost $700 million today in raw computing power to hack the bitcoin blockchain.
Then again you might say : Well, with bitcoin market cap more than USD 120 billion and growing, it’s a worth investment, so hackers might find some investors to fund their operation.
Agree with that. But that’s just the first hurdle. Hackers would need computing power equivalent to 10 days’ worth of New York City’s energy consumption to hack the bitcoin blockchain. Not only that, they have to complete the hack before the next block was mined. Please note that the bitcoin blocks are mined every 10 minutes. It means, hackers would have to compromise more than half the computers in the network at the same time… and do it all in under 10 minutes (some other cryptos took only a few seconds before the next block mined)
So you can see, while technically possible, it’s imprac¬tical to hack a blockchain
Decentralized Data Storage
Everyone relies on data storage. Institutions like banks, companies, and governments use data storage to back up financial records, banking records, credit card information and even national secrets.
But there is a problem.
The current data-storage model is centralized. And that makes large databases juicy targets for hackers. When you store all your data on one centralized serv¬er, a hacker only has to break through a single line of defense to steal all of it.
Imagine you have a castle. In that castle, you have $1 billion. Thieves only have to break through your castle walls to get your $1 billion. It’s difficult, but it’s worth the gamble because the payoff is so large.
That’s the problem with this centralized model of data storage. Each trove of data becomes a high-value target. Imagine instead of having one castle with $1 billion in it, we had 1 million castles that each had $ 1,000 in them? For $1,000, what are the odds anyone would even attack your castle?
Breaking into a castle to steal $1,000 is just not worth it. And the costs to break into 1 million castles to steal the entire $1 billion would be astronomical.
That’s the power of a decentralized model.
You don’t keep the data in one place. You split it up, encrypt it, and disperse it. That makes any attack against your data costly.
Decentralized storage is the future of data storage. Everything from your personal data to your most sensitive data will be stored this way. Large-scale data hacks will become a thing of the past.
**So….It’s all not about Bitcoin **
There are many coin using blockchain technology that have bright future
Ethereum, an open-source, public, blockchain-based distributed computing platform featuring smart contract.
Ripple, focused on becoming the world’s largest payment platform for banks. It gives banks a uniform currency that can be used to complete transactions across multiple types of pay¬ment platforms. It’s faster, more transparent, and cheaper than the current SWIFT payment system.
Monero that solves two of the key problems with bitcoin which are “scaling problem” & “privacy”
Steemit, a social media platform that rewards content creators. And it’s threatening to overthrow Facebook’s supremacy.
Golem, a decentralized sharing economy that allows people to rent out their unused computing power.
Augur, a decentralized prediction market that lets you forecast events and be rewarded for predicting them correctly.
DigixDAO, an asset tokenization platform.
Melonport, blockchain software for asset management.
Filecoin, a decentralized sharing economy that allows people to rent out their unused computer storage.
And many many others……
Cryptocurrency Gains Regulatory Approval
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regulates futures and options markets. Recently, the agency granted the first-ever exchange license to a Bitcoin options service. It's extremely bullish for Bitcoin. The company getting the license is Bitcoin exchange LedgerX.
Here's why the news is so important...
Large institutions such as hedge funds have refrained from investing in Bitcoin. Now, that's about to change. There are two reasons for this.
First, they were afraid of trading a non-regulated asset. Now that LedgerX is approved by the CFTC, this hurdle is removed.
Second, they had no way to hedge risk. Portfolio managers lose their jobs when unhedged portfolios blow up. That's why institutions hate unhedged risk. With the pending launch of LedgerX, institutions will have an options market they can use to hedge their cryptocurrency positions. And that will open the floodgates to enormous institutional investment.
The other thing is the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), came out and they said that they are going to launch bitcoin futures.
So just like gold futures, silver futures or futures on the American dollar, you’ll be able to trade futures on bitcoin. And this is what has charged up the price of bitcoin recently from about $6,000 to up above $7,500 a bitcoin. The altcoin market, the other coins other than bitcoin, immediately move up.
Japan, the world's 3rd largest economy by GDP, officially greenlighted Bitcoin. It even issued 11 licenses for Bitcoin exchanges recently.
Governments will continue to realize that it's better to have a hand in how cryptocurrency is shaped and regulated than try to destroy it (which they can't).
Think back to when the U.S. government finally realized that prohibition was unenforceable. Better to regulate alcohol and tax it.
Lessons From the Dot-Com Bubble
The last time we saw this much early-stage technology opportunity was in the early 1990s. The internet was just beginning to pick up steam… and most people still didn’t understand it. But the internet was showing up on the radar of venture capitalists and forward-thinking investors. There weren't any real consumer applications yet. But those of people knew the technology would be transformational. Then, like now, we started seeing an enormous amount of money pour into a brand-new sector.
Blockchain technology going through the same cycle. People have heard of it, but they don’t yet fully comprehend how it will touch virtually every aspect of their digital lives.
We are at the very beginning of a massive technolog¬ical change. As the internet remade entire industries, so will the blockchain. Many people can’t visualize a different future until they are living in it, but by then, much of the really big gains have disappeared.
Within the next few years, we will see an explosion of brand-new consumer and institutional applications for cryptocurrencies and their underlying technology—the blockchain. Just like what we saw happen in the internet space when "go live" applications like Amazon and eBay started hitting the marketplace in 1995.
Bloomberg reports cryptos are minting a new class of millionaires. In the past 12 months, no investment market in the world has grown faster, or produced more explosive gains, than cryptocurrencies.
But don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s too late to get in… 2017 is just the beginning
We aren’t the only ones who like cryptocurrencies. Big money and names are starting to flow into the space.
Venture capitalists have invested over $1.3 billion in cryptocurrency startups.
That includes folks like Peter Theil, co-founder of PayPal and the first outside investor in Facebook.
Marc Andreessen, a Netscape co-founder and one of Silicon Valley’s most influential venture capitalists, is also investing in cryptocurrency startups.
And billionaire Richard Branson… Yahoo founder Jerry Yang… Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff… Google Ventures… and more.
The banks are getting in on the game, too. JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs are starting to invest in cryptocurrency technology.
JPMorgan alone is investing as much as $9 billion.
On top of that, many of the most powerful countries, including China, England, Russia, the Netherlands, and Canada are “beta testing” cryptocurrencies.
So start your Cryptocurrency Journey now
Before you missed the boat !