Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, has completed ten years. Nobody knows for sure who invented it; it was just one person or a group of persons but it is known that Bitcoin was for the first time posted on a cryptography mailing list. When it was first mined, its value was just $0.003 dollar or 15 paise per Bitcoin. However, now, Bitcoin’s value is $6,366 or Rs 4,68,251.13.
On December 17, 2017, when it reached its highest price ever, it was trading at $19,343.04, which was about Rs 12 lakh. Bitcoin’s growth in rupee terms has been a whopping 31,21,67,233%.
Here’s all you need to know about Bitcoin
- The founder of Bitcoin is known as Satoshi Nakamoto but nobody knows who it is. Satoshi Nakamoto posted a paper called Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System on a cryptography mailing list. Later, it became an open source community project.
- The first commodity ever bought, reports say, by Bitcoin was Pizza. Then the cost of pizza was 10,000 Bitcoin.
- Last reported, Santoshi Nakamoto owns some $ 7.5 billion worth of the crypto-currency.
- Last year, it surged from $2,200 in July to $19,000 in December. However, soon it began tumbling and fell to as low as $5,000 before recovering. The reasons for its fall were attributed to many countries declaring it illegal and the launch of Bitcoin’s futures.
- Bitcoin has hit headlines for its criticism by many bankers and businessmen. While Nobel laureate Paul Krugman called it an ‘evil’, top banker Jamie Dimon said labelling it a ‘fraud’.
- Bitcoin is not a legal tender in India. Moreover, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has imposed a ban on a virtual ban by asking every entity regulated by it to cut ties with anyone or any organisation dealing in Bitcoin.