If you bought just $1,000 of bitcoins in July 2010 you would now have 90 million dollars on your hands from a mere five cents a pop seven years ago the cryptocurrency has steadily been climbing in value what's driving Bitcoin surgeon value one reason could be the recent upgrades to the system transactions are faster and fees are lower another reason might simply be that more people know about it and are comfortable with the idea of a cryptocurrency including investors as more mainstream traders and investors get onboard the currency is seen as increasingly robust for the uninitiated bitcoin is a virtual currency created by a mysterious individual who goes by the name Satoshi Nakamoto though God is most certainly not his actual name Nakamoto introduced his idea for the crypto currency in a research paper in 2008 and it was implemented in 2009 as open source code his reason for creating Bitcoin came down to the flaws he saw in the current system banks debasing currency a lack of privacy and security banks predatory lending practices and the difficulties and expenses with transferring money with a currency based on cryptographic proof without the need to trust a third party middleman money can be secured in transactions effortless bitcoin is not actually a coin but a line of unique code and like the dollar bill today Bitcoin has value because people give it value like gold there's a fixed amount of Bitcoin that can exist in the world 21 million bitcoins on blockchain a digital ledger that keeps track of every single transaction made in the Bitcoin network making it especially secure because everything is public and everything is tracked it's the world's first open Financial Network as people become increasingly wary of government control over individual assets Bitcoin becomes more and more viable your own personal bank that no one can touch your Bitcoin is stored in a wallet this wallet can be a digital wallet or even a physical one wherever you think your unique key a long string of numbers that is yours and yours we'll be safest if you're looking to invest in Bitcoin you can do so in three different ways number one you can mine your own which is very difficult as competitions for mining bitcoins has increased only those with powerful computers and cash to shell out for energy costs you can keep up with processing the increasingly difficult calculations number two buy some from an online exchange or number three you can buy shares in a fund that invests in Bitcoin and if you're looking to cash out you can do so by selling your Bitcoin directly to another user in exchange for another currency or in an online exchange bitcoins real world value may be slower to develop as a day-to-day currency it's still hard to use while there are some brick-and-mortar establishments that accept the currency from hotel chains like Howard Johnson to certain restaurants it's still difficult to use out in the real world online certain goods and services can be bought with the currency as more companies and retailers begin to recognize bitcoins growth adoption will follow for now the currency's value lies in what it's worth with bitcoin holders closely watching its value climb wondering when if ever to cash out for Uproxx I'm Frankie Greek
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