About Bitcoin

About Bitcoin

As you probably already know, there’s a new kid on the block in the form of Bitcoins, which are supposed to be an alternative to traditional money. Their main selling point is that they are completely separated from all the authorities and governments, which means that they are basically the ideal currency for markets that are supposed to be completely free from outside influence. And they are certainly well suited to online gamblin, so long as the casino accepts bitcoin. In this article, we’re going to answer some of the most common questions that are popping out nowadays.

Who’s Behind Bitcoin?

While there’s no doubting that Bitcoins burst onto the scene in the year of 2009, there are virtually no certainties when it comes to the cryptocurrency’s inventor, who goes under the name of Satoshi Nakamoto. Well, perhaps that isn’t completely correct – it’s almost definitely true that Satoshi Nakamoto is just a pseudonym that’s used to hide the real identity of the system’s founder, who apparently wants to stay as anonymous as the users that are already using the currency for actual transactions.

Over the years, we’ve seen plenty of speculations regarding who Satoshi Nakamoto really is. A few of those speculations were more credible than the rest, but, as things stand, the mystery remains unresolved. Considering what virtually all the rumours led to, there’s a decent chance that the real Nakamoto will never speak out on his own, as doing so could lead not only to unwanted media attention, but also to some pretty serious dangers and investigations.

The last person that tried to claim Nakamoto’s identity was Craig Steven Wright, an Australian former academic that even came up with sophisticated proofs that were supposed to show that he understands the inner workings of Bitcoin better than anyone else. Unsurprisingly, the Australian Federal Police raided his home and business premises soon after he made the big announcement – and you’d need to be a very brave man to believe that the investigation was all about unresolved tax issues.

How Does Bitcoin Work?

Unlike traditional currencies, Bitcoins don’t really exist in the off-line world – you can have a paper wallet that contains Bitcoins, but you won’t be able to make any transactions with them unless you go online (well, you can give the paper wallet – in its entirety, as there’s no way to split Bitcoins off-line – to someone else, but that doesn’t really count, does it?).

In order to initiate a payment, you’ll need a bitcoin wallet and the public address of the bitcoin wallet that you want to send your Bitcoins to. All transactions are carried out within the so-called block chain, a huge chunk of data that includes all confirmed transactions. Making a payment essentially adds new data to the existing block chain, so nothing is actually being “sent”.

Importantly, no personal details are required for a transaction to take place, which makes Bitcoin payments completely anonymous if you follow the best possible practices (and the vast majority of web-based and software Bitcoin wallets follow them automatically).

Since all the transactions are processed on a peer-to-peer basis, there are no central authorities that would “govern” the Bitcoin network as such. That means that there’s no way for the governments to artificially decrease the value of Bitcoins – put simply, the value is completely market-driven. This naturally has a lot of advantages, but it does come with the small little issue of there not being anything that could stabilize the prices, which makes Bitcoin somewhat impractical.

Where to Buy Bitcoin?

Once you decide that Bitcoins might be worth checking out from within, you’ll need to purchase a few somewhere – and the number of services that can help you here will make your head spin.

First of all, there are marketplaces that allow individual users to trade Bitcoins with each other while taking a small fee from all such transactions, usually from the seller’s side of things. With some of those services even offering escrows, there’s a good case to be made for them if you’re looking to buy just a couple of Bitcoins here and there.

Secondly, you can register at one of the big exchanges and trade Bitcoins like a professional. This is naturally recommended for everyone who wants to gear up for the long run, but these services aren’t incredibly user-friendly, so you’ll do well to ignore them if all you want is a handful of Bitcoins.

Finally, you can also take advantage of one of those services that work only as sellers. These are usually the most convenient, allowing you to buy large amounts of Bitcoins without you having to worry about all the security issues that come with user-to-user transactions, but they do tend to come with a few pitfalls as well. Just to give you an example – a number of these services (like the popular Coinbase) track the Bitcoins they sell for a while and may decide to close your account if they think that you’re doing something shady with them. Since that apparently includes sending them to a Bitcoin address that’s associated with an online casino, these services might not be the best choice for those who like online gambling.

Is It a Safe Investment?

With plenty of people starting to lose their faith in the traditional banking systems, we’ve seen plenty of questions regarding how safe an investment Bitcoins really are. Truth to be told, the jury is still out on that one, but we’re convinced that Bitcoins are actually fairly safe, as they’ve already moved way past the initial “proof of concept” phase and as there seems to be nothing that could possibly stop them from slowly creeping into mainstream usage.

Although it most certainly isn’t a good idea to take your entire bankroll and trade it for a wallet full of Bitcoins, there is a case to be made for investing at least a part of it into the cryptocurrency – not only to store a part of the bankroll’s value in something less traditional, but also to have a shot at getting a bit richer when one of the inevitable Bitcoin spikes rolls around. There will, of course, be some sudden dips in value as well, but, unless you buy your Bitcoins during one of the aforementioned spikes, chances are that you’re going to end up with a decent profit after a while.