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What on Earth is cryptocurrency? Cryptocurrency is to conventional money (that you’re used to-cash, credit and debit cards) what gold is to stones. Cryptocurrency has actual value, despite what some bankers are saying. The irony will become apparent shortly. In January 2009, the unknown creator of Bitcoin, dubbed Satoshi Nakamoto, created a peer-to-peer value transfer system.

At that time, one Bitcoin had a value close enough to nothing. In April the following year, it was valued at USD $0.003. Today, one Bitcoin is worth $3700. Ten bucks of Bitcoin acquired in April of 2010 would now be worth close to 12.5 million dollars.

In the wake of another particularly turbulent time (it’s always hurricane season here, folks) in the cryptocurrency investing space, Bitcoin shed around thirty five percent of it’s value as most people ‘sleep’, so to speak. The vast majority of the public are still very much unaware of what a cryptocurrency is, and resultantly are extremely hesitant to put their hard earned money down and potentially turn their financial lives around (and be a part of something extremely magical). The status quo can be a horribly debilitating and crippling aspect of life. When people understand or get familiar with something, they cling to it. Ask most people whether Pluto is a planet and they’ll say, “Of course”. While Pluto was once a planet, it was demoted to a “non-planet” in 2006, and in 2015, was later reconsidered as a planet once more. In 2015, NASA was referring to Pluto as a dwarf planet, yet in 2017 we should be referring to Pluto as a fully-fledged planet. Yay. Confused?

You've got to embrace change. People laughed at the idea of an "internet" in the 1980's and 1990's and didn't gain real traction until the early 2000's. Whether it's hard to comprehend or just seems counter-intuitive at first, this tiny stir called "cryptocurrency" will be the ultimate downfall of banks.

With countless financial crises occurring throughout modern human existence, people have been thrown into turmoil because of reckless monetary policy. Central banks have been able to “fiddle the books” and create money as they see fit (most attempt to do it responsibly, you could argue). In many cases when things aren’t working, they do stupid things like run the money printing press non-stop. This ultimately wreaks havoc on the people through hyperinflation that, in the past, has resulted in citizens finding more value in burning government issued notes than spending it on food.

If you’re interested, have a look what’s happening in Zimbabwe, Venezuela and of course, there’s the catastrophe of the Weimar Republic hyperinflation (Germany, 1923).

When people are so susceptible to corruption and lining their own pockets first, why on Earth would we pay these same people to control our money, putting it in banks, allowing them the privilege of fractional reserve banking and charging us fees to access it? It relies on trust. This trust is waning and when there’s another solution that people understand, how long will it be until your bank becomes a library – filled with holograms of what the world did before the people took back power and paid people directly (this is the whole idea of peer-to-peer transactions) and extricated banks from their lives.

Cryptocurrencies need to be mined. Mining uses computational power and lots of it. Electricity costs money and so does the computer hardware required to do so. Therefore, we see the cost of mining cryptocurrencies. They are not valueless.

Change is inevitable and just because you think you know something doesn’t mean it’s true nor does it make it the best solution. We’ve already discussed the devil we know in the current financial system, so it’s time to take a nap.

Just this morning, as I was lying in bed recovering from a few too many drinks last night with friends, I was perusing the digital content within my new Samsung S8. What I stumbled upon as I was scrolling through recommended videos on YouTube was the launch video of the Apple iPhone. Remember that event way back in 2006? Steve Jobs was loping across the stage in his white sneakers and jeans as he talked about a revolution in the palm of your hand. He highlighted what the Macintosh did for personal computers and even how the iPod transformed the music industry. He showed a couple of button-cluttered phones that were inappropriate for my needs back then (remember, I had a pretty, little Sony Ericsson K610i?) and lamented their fixed user interface. The introduction of the iPhone turned phones, media players and the internet into a single joyful device. (It could be argued that it was done earlier, but without as much simplicity and ease of use, I’ll concede.)

If the iPhone can transform how we use telephony and data in our personal spaces, then so too can Blockchain and Tangle technology transform the way in which we transact directly with one another.

Very briefly, the Blockchain is a ledger of information that’s encrypted, stored and publicly available for viewing. These chunks of information are stored as blocks on a chain, hence the name. Information can be edited – but those edits are transparent, so tough luck corrupt people. Your adjustments are on show.

Tangle is more or less the same cryptographic coding, except imagine a web of information, arguably faster and more easily accessible for those wanting to add or view transactions.

These are simplifications, so if you’re interested in the nitty gritty, I’ll let you Google an expert on the matter.

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Digibyte is a faster, more scalable version of Bitcoin -except very few people know much about it. Think of it as Facebook when Myspace was the dominant social network. An entrepreneur named Jared Tate is working with his team out of Hong Kong on something very magical. Right now, Digibyte's price has been smashed down to AUD $0.0165 for 1 DGB.

Do you plan to trust the current system or have a willingness to ride the wave?

If you're interested - check out CoinSpot to purchase cryptocurrencies in Australia (I have no affiliation, but have found them adequate for my purposes). Google other cryptocurrency trading platforms to see which one may suit your needs.

If you enjoyed this article, UPVOTE, COMMENT, RESTEEM and FOLLOW me for future articles and to support my lovely little Steemit space.

I'm also happy to receive Digibyte donations to this address: D6vkDMSZYZiVE9sPxdNY7ikXZH2jrDp3sq

All the best,
Nick

All content is original.

disclaimer: this is not financial advice.