Top 6 Myths About Bitcoin
Bitcoin has been around for some time now and despite all that people had to say about the flagship cryptocurrency that it will not see the next year since its launch in 2009 and that it is a complete financial fraud, Bitcoin continues to kick and exist still to this date. Bitcoin traders and miners already know how significant cryptocurrency is and just how much the demand for Bitcoin has skyrocketed over the years.
Sure some nations and countries were earlier skeptical of Bitcoin and its trading patterns the extreme volatility that the cryptocurrency represents but with the passage of time, they have come to understand the decentralized significance of cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin. Some have even gone out on a limb to give Bitcoin the title of white gold and or digital gold, while some think that it could serve as an alternative to the gold market in the upcoming years.
Despite all that is said about Bitcoin and how it is a plain fraud, waste of money, and resources, the flagship currency just continues to bounce back and deter all those myths right there and then. If Bitcoin was a fraud and the whole idea of decentralization is a lost cause, then how come there are so many altcoins and crypto tokens out there that continue to gain inspiration from the likes of Bitcoin and decentralization?
Why are people going out of their way to waste their time and resources on developing these tokens if there is no scope for them? This statement in itself debunks the basic myth about Bitcoin being a complete waste of time. Some people have even argued in the past, and some continue to do so in the present that the value of Bitcoin is not based on anything and that at the end of the day, the flagship cryptocurrency is just too volatile.
For that reason alone, it must not have any real-world use, and it’s just a big old hoax; if you do think the same, then this guide right here is for you as we will go about debunking some of the most elementary myths spoken about Bitcoin in real-time. If you are tempted enough, then give the following six myths about Bitcoin a careful read, and you would come to an understanding about how these are just myths and nothing more;
- Bitcoin is Nothing But a Bubble
When something is being allocated as a bubble, it means that a great amount of hype is being built around that specific asset, and when enough people have bought it, the whole thing is just going to tank. The same thing happened in 2008 with the housing market in the United States, the bonds were being dealt and bought right and left, and most of them failed as the whole housing market plummeted into the ground. It is true that many people out there do buy Bitcoin as a form of speculative investment, and they also seek big returns for it, but it doesn’t mean that Bitcoin in itself is a bubble.
Something is only a bubble if it is being characterized by an unsustainable rise within the market value of that asset, just the very thing that happened with the housing market back in the day. When the realization happens that the price of the asset is just too much than the fundamental value of it by then, it is just too late.
Most bubbles would last a few months to even years, and that is another point which is made about Bitcoin that it has been enough years now, and the bubble is just about to get popped. But that is not the case because the value of Bitcoin is immensely justified, and it didn’t rise overnight but in a successive and consistent manner. To state the truth, Bitcoin has gone through many price cycles over the last 12 years, and the boom of Bitcoin technology along with blockchain technology has resulted in wider adoption and application of the flagship cryptocurrency, thus making it more stable and less volatile as the years passed by.
- Bitcoin Lacks Real-World Uses
Any kind of asset that can be invested in has some type of real-world uses, may this be bonds, securities, forex, or stocks they have their own real-world uses, and so does Bitcoin. Many critics, on the other hand, would claim that Bitcoin has no significance in the real world, and even if it did have any use, it is mostly for illicit activities such as money laundering, but none of these statements are even remotely true.
Bitcoin has an incredible history of being used as a transactional medium as people have made transactions using the cryptocurrency in the past to anywhere and anyone around the world. Bitcoin removes the need to have any kind of intermediary or a payment processor because it works on the ethics of blockchain technology and decentralization; therefore, there is no need for an intermediary to be there. If the situation or conditions of the contract that is being added onto the blockchain technology is met, then the payment gets released, and everyone wins. Bitcoin has achieved the title of being a hedge against inflation as even gold has at times failed to provide a proper infrastructure to work as a hedge against inflation.
Many public credit companies around the world have invested millions of dollars into Bitcoin and continue to hold those stocks or assets of Bitcoin still to this date. As it goes for gold, Bitcoin is also extremely scarce, which means that one day the supply or development of new tokens is going to stop, and there will only be a limited number of Bitcoins available out there, thus adding considerably to its significance and value in the real world. As for the illicit activity such as money laundering using Bitcoin as a mode of finance, all the transactions for Bitcoin takes place on the open blockchain, which means that all the record of the transaction is made available to the public, if there is any illicit activity then authorities can definitely track it down and put an end to it.
- Bitcoin Lacks any Real Value
The claims by the critics that Bitcoin lacks any kind of real value whatsoever have been present for some time now. It is true that Bitcoin is not backed up by physical assets such as gold which is backing the US dollar and essentially every other Fiat currency out there. All these currencies are backed up by gold, whereas Bitcoin is a virtual asset that has been programmed from the get-go to be scarce, which makes it extremely resistant to inflation.
However, inflation can happen because these can be printed as the demand increases, and that adds to decreasing value of the currency in the long run, thus depreciating its significance as the years go by. It has already been hardcoded into the Bitcoin blockchain that there will only be 21 million Bitcoin tokens which make this asset extremely scarce, but at the same time, this scarcity is a major driver of its value. The supply of Bitcoin is capped at the moment, and at the same time, the number of new Bitcoin tokens that are being mined is also declining in an extremely predictable yet comprehensible way.
Every four years, ‘halving’ is done, which is a mechanism according to which the rewards for minting new blocks within the Bitcoin blockchain and the rewards that are paid to the miners to do the work are being cut in half. There will come a time when the rewards would become so insignificant that no one would take part in minting new tokens, but the validation aspect of the transactions would continue.
All of this has been done to make sure that the supply is reducing complying with the basic principle of economic scarcity, thus pushing the price of Bitcoin upwards over time. Another greater aspect of value regarding Bitcoin is the overall work that all these computing nodes do to verify and validate the transactions that are taking place on the blockchain. This adds value to the community and, at the end of the day, strengthens the belief and appreciation of people for Bitcoin and decentralization.
- Bitcoin can be Replaced by a Competitor
Another extremely powerful myth that has been circulating out there is that Bitcoin will soon be replaced by a competitor, and a successor will take place on the throne on which Bitcoin currently sits. Many crypto analysts and traders over the years have given immense value and dedication to Ether and the suitable work that its blockchain is doing to further the cause of decentralization. There have been talks of Ether taking over Bitcoin in the long run and that it will act as a more prominent and decisive store of value rather than Bitcoin.
New cryptocurrencies have always been given an edge over Bitcoin in terms of the overall set of features and advantages these will be able to bring to the table, but in reality, none of them have even come close to Bitcoin. It is going to be an extremely difficult task to completely replace Bitcoin given the fact that it is the very cryptocurrency that started it all, gave people the idea of decentralization and blockchain technology, and is the most valuable cryptocurrency by market cap.
Bitcoin also remains the most popular cryptocurrency securing over 60% of people’s interests in the crypto market. Another reason why Bitcoin might not get overrun in the future is because of its purity and dedication to its mission by remaining a decentralized and open currency.
There is no central authority that has any kind of say in how the network is being regulated and transactions are secured onto the blockchain, which makes the whole thing pretty competent and reluctant to tamper. To give some further thought to the whole thing, it is possible that a new rival of Bitcoin might emerge in the future, but the chances of that happening are pretty slim because as other cryptocurrencies are updating themselves, Bitcoin is also doing the same thing.
- Investing in Bitcoin is Equivalent to Gambling
The Crypto market is not your go-to marketplace for beginner-level traders, and it is certainly not a walk in the park. It is an extremely tough and volatile market, and many traders simply fear stepping into it. But that doesn’t mean that it is impossible to make a buck even with all this volatility just piling up and making the possibility of winning big a bleak adventure for the traders. What do you expect from a market that is only a decade old is still young and growing.
If you take the whole thing to comparison, then you would come to the understanding that the value of Bitcoin has increased tremendously, and it still continues to do so; yes, there have been a few setbacks in the past, but that doesn’t necessarily paint the whole essence of crypto market and Bitcoin before the masses. People who go into this thing or endeavor with proper plan and strategy in place, people who are doing market analysis, price analysis, and everything in their power to understand the very move that the flagship cryptocurrency takes are better off in the long run than those people who simply step into the game with big dreams of making a quick buck and not putting in the effort to do so. It is a common misunderstanding between beginner-level Bitcoin traders that eventually, the value of their holdings is going to rise continuously, but that is seldom the case.
There is no guarantee whatsoever that the future performance of this cryptocurrency would remain as stronger as the present one of the time when they first purchased the token. You have to consult with the market conditions and continue to make a few trades up and down the road to ensure that you are in proper sync with the market and are not sitting in fool’s paradise making all these options by yourself that the value of your crypto is only going to increase and there will not be a set back of any magnitude.
How much of it you should acquire relatively depends on your investment portfolio, if you have other cryptocurrencies that you want to add in there, your risk tolerance, and eventually the investment time horizon. While it is true that Bitcoin has had multiple upwards price movements at the same time, it has a significant number of ground cycles as well that is why caution is advised, and you should not proceed with the current trading if you are not completely sure that you can take the heat and the pressure.
- Bitcoin is not Potentially Secure
It has been argued time and again by critics that the Bitcoin network is not that secure and Bitcoin as an asset or a financial enterprise is also not the best example of security. Both allegations are completely false and are nothing but a myth. Bitcoin might not be backed with the physical asset as discussed earlier, such as gold, but it definitely has its own use case and, in its own doing, is an extremely rigid and mobilized asset class and one of its kind.
As for the security of the blockchain, here is a little information, the Bitcoin network has never been hacked before, which speaks openly for its security and intimate encryption, every hash in every block including all the information regarding the transactions that are validated and recorded in real-time. The open-source code for Bitcoin has already been scrutinized by multiple security experts and computer scientists out there, and they were not able to find even a single point of error or compromised aspect within the whole code.
Bitcoin remains the first-ever cryptocurrency to solve the double-spending problem, which was a real disaster back in the day as people got to spend their money more than once. Fiat financial systems lacked the speed and efficiency to deduct their money as soon as a transaction got transferred. Bitcoin has proposed an elegant solution to this whole façade by putting an end to the double-spend problem making peer-to-peer transactions a reality without the need for any intermediary whatsoever. Multiple attacks have been ventured on 3rd party businesses and services which use Bitcoin, and that is why these allegations are being spawned on Bitcoin itself.
It doesn’t mean that Bitcoin has any kind of crack within its security, but it simply directs the whole thing towards the very security detail of the enterprise that got hacked in the first place. A huge amount of computational power is working around the clock to make sure that the whole network remains as secure and feasible as possible. All the transactions that take place on the network are being validated and regulated in real-time, which leaves no error for any kind of floozy whatsoever. There are approximately 100 countries from which stems the nodes are covering the entirety of the Bitcoin network, meaning that there is no single point of failure at all. All the myths that you have ever come across are nothing but a hoax; it is, however, a reality that it is a volatile asset, but you must tackle this issue yourself before stepping into the market or having some kind of interaction with Bitcoin in the first place.
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