From $478 in the morning and reaching $744 in midnight (November 18, 2013), breaching the level of $1000 (couple of days before) and registering growth of over 4000% since beginning of this year: This explanation is enough to depict what we are discussing about. Bitcoin, the new crypto based virtual currency is making noise in both government and financial institution's parlance. Leave gold and oil, Bitcoin is the new gold, or say Crypto Gold.
Bitcoin is an open source, peer to peer payment network introduced by pseudonymous developer "Satoshi Nakamoto". Bitcoin uses cryptography to secure transactions over a decentralized network of computers. Bitcoin came into existence in year 2009 and till now there are approximately 12 million bitcoins generated.
The recent surge in price of Bitcoins and vis a vis their popularity has left strangled both regulators of all major countries and big financial institutions. Though as per "The Economist", these are popular because of their usage in dodgy market. One such service, Silk Road was shut down because of its involvement in illegal drugs supply. Another example is Liberty Reseve, which was also supposedly involved in criminal activities. But the pro for Bitcoin is that many genuine and large vendors are also accepting it, OkCubit, Reddit, Wordpress and Baidu, to name a few. The biggest advantage for vendors in accepting Bitcoin as a payment methodology, or in general any virtual currency, is low transaction fees; which is generally 2% to 3% for credit cards.
Vancouver was lucky to get first Bitcoin ATM installed in late October 2013. Couple of days before currency reached $1200, almost equivalent to Gold. Supporters of Bitcoin are escalated by its anoynimity and ease by which money can be transferred with out government interference, negligible transaction fee is another pro. But some claim that this is all fad and will burst soon. They say it is still very limited medium of exchange and will get over soon. Another issue for Bitcoin community or say users is US recent involvement in cyber money and its based activities. It can also be used for tax evasion.
But Bitcoin is not completely anonymous. You and me can not check who is transferring money but NSA or US government can. It is because for setting up or building up or say for transferring money through Bitcoin, every one has to set up a Money exchange which can be traced and tracked by security agencies.
Now the question arises is that is this the currency of Future or will go Silk Road way. No one has the answer right now, but definitely Bitcoin has created vibrations among many big buddies of money and play.
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