Why you should use bitcoin and not just invest in it


Bitcoin is a relatively new form of currency that is just beginning to hit the mainstream, but many people still don’t understand why they should make the effort to use it. Why use bitcoin? Here are ten good reasons why it’s worth taking the time to get involved in this virtual currency.


It’s fast



When you pay a cheque from another bank into your bank, the bank will often hold that money for several days, because it can’t trust that the funds are really there. Similarly, international wire transfers can take a relatively long time.

why use bitcoinBitcoin transactions are generally far faster. Transactions can be instantaneous if they are “zero-confirmation” transactions, meaning that the merchant takes on the risk of accepting a transaction that hasn’t yet been confirmed by the block chain. Or, they can take around ten minutes if a merchant requires the transaction to be confirmed. That’s far faster than any inter-bank transfer.

It’s cheap



Nem veheti el a központi hatalom


Remember what happened in Cyprus in March 2013? The Central Bank decided to take back uninsured deposits larger than $100,000 to help recapitalize itself, causing huge unrest in the local population. It originally wanted to take a percentage of deposits below that figure, eating directly into family savings.

That can’t happen with bitcoin. Because the currency is decentralized, you own it. No central authority has control, and so a bank can’t take it away from you. For those who find their trust in the traditional banking system eroding, that’s a big benefit.

There are no chargebacks




People can’t steal your important information from merchants


This is a big one. Most online purchases today are made via credit cards, but in the twenties and thirties, when the first precursors to credit cards appeared, the Internet hadn’t been conceived. Credit cards were never supposed to be used online. They are insecure. Online forms require you to enter all your secret information (the credit card number, expiry date, and CSV number) into a web form. It would be more difficult to think of a less secure way to do business. This is why credit card numbers keep being stolen.


It isn’t inflationary


The problem with regular fiat currency is that governments can print as much of it as they like, and they frequently do. If there are not enough US dollars to pay off the national debt, then the Federal Reserve can simply print more. This causes the value of a currency to decrease. If you suddenly double the number of dollars in circulation, then that means there are two dollars where before there was only one. Someone who had been selling a chocolate bar for a dollar will have to double the price to make it worth the same as it was before, because a dollar suddenly has only half its value.


Bitcoin was designed to have a maximum number of coins. Only 21 million will ever be created under the original specification. This means that after that, the number of bitcoins won’t grow, so inflation won’t be a problem. In fact, deflation – where the price of goods and services falls – is more of a problem for bitcoin than inflation.

It’s as private as you want it to be


Sometimes, we don’t want people knowing what we have purchased. Bitcoin is a relatively private currency. On the one hand, it is transparent; everyone knows how much a particular bitcoin address holds in transactions. They know where those transactions came from, and where they’re sent.


You don’t need to trust anyone else


In a conventional banking system, you have to trust people to handle your money properly along the way. You have to trust the bank, for example. You might have to trust a third-party payment processor. You’ll often have to trust the merchant, too. These organizations demand important, sensitive pieces of information from you.


You own it



You can make bitcoins yourself


In spite of the amazing advances in home office colour printing technology, most national governments take a fairly dim view of you producing your own money. With bitcoin, however, it is encouraged. You can certainly buy bitcoins on the open market, but you can also mine your own if you have enough computing power. After covering your initial investment in equipment and electricity, mining bitcoins is akin to producing money out of thin air. And who wouldn’t like their computer to earn them money while they sleep?


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