The Rise of Cryptocurrency
“Paper money is going away” — Elon Musk
In 2008, Cryptocurrency was just a concept, but after the launching of Bitcoin in 2009, everything changed.
In centralized banking, Governments control the money supply, whereas Cryptocurrency is intangible money that exists only virtually and is secured with cryptography which means it’s a Peer-to-Peer system.
Various cryptocurrencies are making their way to the top, affecting the world’s economies. Many places like the Central African Republic and El Salvador now accept them as their legal tenders.
History
The history of these currencies can be traced to the 1980s, when they were called Cyber currencies.
A cryptographer and computer scientist, David Chaum is widely credited with creatingCryptocurrency’s philosophical and technological foundations in 1983. Nick Szabo, in 1998, created a decentralized currency with its PoW(Proof-of-Work) consensus mechanism. SatoshiNakamoto, a supposedly pseudonymous developer, established the first decentralized Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, in 2009.
The first Bitcoin transaction occurred between Nakamoto and Hal Finney on 12th January 2009.
The Rise
It’s crystal clear to us that cryptocurrencies significantly impact people today and in today’s digital economy.
At the time of writing, the world’s market cap of the Top 10 cryptocurrencies is vast and growing.
In the financial crisis of 2007–2008, many people from the USA and Europe lost their trust in Banks, Financial Institutes, and the Government. The collapse of the Venerable Wall Street bank Lehman Brothers in September 2008 marked the largest bankruptcy in US history.
At that moment, a person or a group of people (Still a mystery) named Satoshi Nakamoto came up with this decentralized idea of currency where there won’t be any third party means No Bank is needed.
2009… “Bitcoin” launched. After that, various cryptocurrencies started launching, and until now, there are almost 18,400 cryptocurrencies worldwide.
The Craze
Well! The main point of these cryptocurrencies is to fix the problems of the traditional fiat currencies by putting power and responsibility in the currency holders’ hands.
Cryptocurrency provides some amazing benefits which make people gaga over it.
Challenging To Forge
Cryptocurrencies operate on the blockchain, a DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology). Blockchain is complicated to hack and manipulate. Though it’s a database, like other traditional databases, there’s no permission to manipulate (delete, change, etc.) data here.
Anyone Can Own Cryptocurrency
Anyone can have a cryptocurrency and can do transactions whenever they want. As it’s a decentralized system, there’s no third-party allowed.
Cross-border Transactions
With the help of cryptocurrencies, the transaction fees a user pays are reduced to zero, and if not zero, then also negligible. It also eliminates third parties like PayPal, Visa, etc.
Protection From Inflation
Cryptocurrency and inflation have a close relationship. If inflation increases, then the value of Cryptocurrency will also increase, which will keep up with the market and, in the long run, prevent inflation also.
The Future
Although it’s impossible to predict the future prospects of all cryptocurrencies, how the market is growing is a good indication.
Though Cryptocurrency is still a new and speculative investment, seeing the pricing jumping daily, we can say it’ll be huge in the future.
Be cautious, learn before investing, and keep the investment small — Go for this.
Over the horizon, Cryptocurrency and blockchain retain a lot more potential to transform not only world finance but world Politics.
“The future of money is Digital Currency” — Bill Gates
