Bitcoin History

About Seven years ago, the Cryptocurrency called Bitcoin was created by Satoshi Nakamoto, who published the invention on 31 October 2008 to a cryptography mailing list in a research paper called "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System". It was implemented as open source code and released in January 2009

A paradigmatic technology, that introduced an efficient payment system to the world, allowing it's User to conduct transaction over the Internet cutting out the middleman, making it Decentralized unlike Centralized Services that have full control over User Funds like Banks, Western Union or Paypal

Bitcoin is the World's First and Most Popular Cryptocurrency, has revealed a New type of Financial Asset that is Decentralized & relies on the Security provided by Encryption, thus not depending on any Central Authority or Government

Bitcoin Today

A relatively new Technology in new Digital era, where Blockchain Ledger is used as the foundational infrastructure that Self-governs its own Network, Bitcoin as a Cryptocurrency was primarily intended to be used a Medium of Exchange, where financial value is Derived from Supply & Demand

Even though Blockchain Technology existed before Bitcoin, it wasn't until this Digital Currency Rocked the Global Financial Market, so you can say that Bitcoin is the Gateway Drug to Cryptocurrency World

The Foundational Technology behind Bitcoin has got the World to wonder about the further Implications that Blockchain Technology has to offer

TRANSACTION COST

''Just paid 23 cents on a $3.74 transaction. When does it end? $1.00 per transaction? $2? $5?
I don’t wanna stop using this peer to peer currency, but I’m fast being priced out of it.”

Traditionally, the Sender pays the full Bitcoin Network Fee which can increase or decrease over time, since certain Services allow you to change the Transaction Fee's a User is willing to pay to the Bitcoin Network, because Miners need to be paid for confirming Transaction in order to maintain a Functioning & Secure Distributed Ledger of Data

Transaction costs is not a new concept for Financial Services, since basically the money that is paid to someone for doing the bookkeeping work of transferring your dollars or Bitcoins or whatever to someone else, subtracting them from your account and adding them to the recipient's account, making sure everyone's records are up to date

When a new Bitcoin Block is generated with a successful Hash, the information for all of the transactions is included with the block and all transaction fees are collected by that user creating the block, who is free to assign those fees to himself.

The transaction fee is therefore an incentive on the part of the Bitcoin user to make sure that a particular transaction will get included into the next block which is generated and processed by bitcoin miners. If you decide to pay 0.1BTC instead of usual 0.001 BTC, your transaction is bound to be confirmed by Bitcoin Miners based more on a first come first serve basis

NETWORK SPEED

The more people use bitcoin, the higher the number of transactions thus competition for space in each block is heating up. It is the Bitcoin Miners who prioritize transactions according to Transaction Fees, working down the list until the block reaches it's limit, commonly 750,000 bytes

Those who pay the Highest Transaction Fees are picked by Bitcoin Miners, thus their Transcation is likely to be confirmed by Bitcoin Network while the remaining Transaction are yet to be validated by blockchain ledger through Proof-of-Work

Transactions that don't make the cut remain in the miner's 'memory pool', a kind of bitcoin limbo. They may be included in future blocks depending on their priority or fee.

The Bitcoin network a financial transfer can take up to an hour to be performed and confirmed, which makes it impractical on a day-to-day business environment.

PRIVACY

For operating in an open registration system, anyone can freely have access to the balances and transaction histories from others. Privacy does not seem to be a major concern among Bitcoin holders, since this particular Cryptocurrency was intended to be a Decentralized and open-source, unlike Digital Tokens like Dash that have built-in solution like Darksend or Monero that features a more unique protocol that focuses primarily on anonymity. Bitcoin definitely offers less privacy, but that doesn't mean it is a particular short-coming

There are many tumbling services for Bitcoins however I would recommend using Dash or Monero for privacy, whereas I see Bitcoin being a more Open Blockchain, this to me is one the Value Proposition that Bitcoin has rather than negative downside since Users have direct access to it's Ledger

If you join Cryptocurrency Chat groups, you'll notice that there are plenty of individual particularly Traders monitoring Bitcoin Network at all times, there will be somebody out there that actively tracks down a big transaction or top bitcoin wallet holders

Traders can monitor Bitcoin Networth at all times, this makes Bitcoin of the most Decentralized and Open Cryptocurrency out there

Proposed Solution for Bitcoins

Recent Volatile Bitcoin Prices is the result of Sentimental News spreading around about the upcoming Bitcoin Hardfork! There are proposed changes to be made to Bitcoin's Protocol, so there seems to be a debate over which protocol would be the best outcome for Bitcoin, as there are currently 2 Solution: SegWit & BitcoinUnlimited

There is also a high possibility of Bitcoin potentially splitting into 2 different Cryptocurrency tokens similar to Ethereum & Ethereum Classic Scenario

There is steady demand for Bitcoin since Individuals, Business & Government Services are accepting Bitcoin, even Alt-coins are not widely accepted around the World because Exchanges & Bank Institution have been working together over the years to offer more services for average individuals to trade and use Bitcoin

Bitcoin Market has reached a high of 20 Billion Market Cap and is currently at $15,956,134,256 as of 26th March 2017, nearly 4.2 Billion USD worth of Bitcoin Total Market Cap has been wiped out, most of it going into Alt-coins like Ethereum, Dash & Steem

Now that Bitcoin Investor are speculating the upcoming Hardfork, it's best to Educate yourself about this Situation before you make your final decision about what to do with your Bitcoin Holdings

Stay Informed about the Upcoming Hardfork