Everybody has already heard about the electronic cryptocurrency Bitcoin. We have gathered 30 amazing and little-known facts about the currency that has shocked the world. Save this so you won’t forget:
Satoshi Nakamoto is supposedly the name of the person who founded Bitcoin. But nobody knows who he really is. Bitcoin was created in 2008.
Every day, about 3,600 new Bitcoins get created during a process called mining.
The first BTC transaction took place on January 21, 2009. Satoshi had wired 100 BTC to another cyberpunk and cryptographer named Hal Finney.
Many attempts have been made to discover who Satoshi Nakamoto really is, but these were unsuccessful. The most recent attempt created a lot of hype, but it was not successful, either.
The first million Bitcoins were mined personally by Satoshi, and most likely still belong to him. People still try to discover Satoshi’s electronic wallet to find him, but Satoshi stays unfazed – and undetected.
The last Bitcoin will be mined in 2140.
21 million is the maximum number of Bitcoins that can be mined at all. As of today, about 12 million are already mined. The mining algorithm decreases the number of Bitcoins twofold every several years, so the process is lopsided.
Attempts were made to create a physical equivalent of Bitcoin, as a coin. Casascius is, in reality, a so-called cold wallet with a holography of the access key printed on it, minted in the shape of a real coin. Casascius coins are usually displayed on every cool-looking photo of the Bitcoin coins.
The small island of Alderney has also declared a plan to mint a physical Bitcoin equivalent.
10. Only 36% of all mined Bitcoins have been part of a transaction; the other 64% have never been touched after the first appearance.
Unlike cold hard cash, all the records of BTC transactions are forever kept in the blockchain, a globally distributed and absolutely open database, which has information about all the Bitcoin wallets in the world.
The current version of Bitcoin has 77,000 code lines, 70,000 of which are written in C++. In the beginning, the project had only 14,000 C++ code lines, which is a very small project by current measures. For example, the Linux core code has 15 million lines.
A Bloomberg journalist, who was not familiar with the rules of Bitcoin security, showed a private key (in a QR code format) of his BTC wallet during a live broadcast. He paid a price – his coins were stolen by one of the viewers; however, later, according to rumors, the money was returned to the journalist.
Great Britain's James Howells accidentally threw away a hard drive with a key to his electronic wallet, which contained 7,500 Bitcoins. It is about $5 million at the current price.
When the WikiLeaks website was cut off from bank card donations at the demands of angry countries, the site immediately began to receive BTC.
A Norwegian student, Kristoffer Koch, had bought $27 worth of Bitcoins in 2009, and forgot about them. When he remembered about his investment, it was worth $886,000.
The first Bitcoin ATM machine has been installed in Vancouver, Canada.
The first university to accept tuition in Bitcoins was Cyprus University. The King’s College in New York City became the first such school in the U.S.
Thailand became the first country in the world to forbid BTC. But it allowed it back again soon after the ban.
The biggest drop in Bitcoin prices happened in April 2013 – it dropped 80% in 24 hours.
After the news about inflation, the popularity of Bitcoin in Argentina skyrocketed. Cryptocurrency doesn’t suffer from the volatility of national currency, so it appeals to people looking to protect their money. But some see it as a threat to the state economy. For example, the Kazakhstan government asked their people to be patriotic and not to invest in Bitcoins.
In November 2013, the price of Bitcoins exceeded the price for gold.
927 people own more than 50% of all Bitcoins.
Lamborghini became the first company in the world where dealers began to accept Bitcoins.
Skycraft Airplanes became the first company selling planes for Bitcoin.
Pizza purchased in 2010 using BTC would cost about $5 million in 2017.
Mel B, a former member of the Spice Girls band, is the first star to accept Bitcoins for her performances.
More than $200 million goes through Bitcoin transactions daily. BTC’s currency circulation has exceeded that of Western Union’s. At a capitalization of $8 billion, Bitcoin is currently a little bit less than the GDP of Estonia.
There are more than 150 other types of cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin. Anyone can create their own cryptocurrency.
One can earn Bitcoin just by playing Counter-Strike. The largest prize pool in the history of the StarCraft II online game has also been in BTC. Where can you earn Bitcoin? What can you do with the cryptocurrency? Watch our video.