6 common myths about Bitcoin and why they cannot be trusted

Given all the negative barrage from the press, with which to fight Bitcoin, the arguments in favor of the coin often drowning in all this noise. So let's look at the most popular ways to attack Bitcoin, myths about BTC and how the community should respond to them.

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the Price of Bitcoin is too high?

Despite the fact that Bitcoin is currently down 60% compared to the peak time, the price of a single bitcoin — about $ 7,000 today — still bites, not allowing people to freely enter the market of cryptocurrencies. Although the Bitcoin was on the main pages of many online Newspapers from mid-2017, most people still don't know that they can buy only a small part of bitcoin. So let's fix: 1 Bitcoin can be split into 100 million Satoshi (the smallest fractional unit of bitcoin). And if someone can't afford a gold bar, worth around 600,000 dollars, it doesn't mean that one can not afford to buy a gold coin or invest a hundred bucks in gold futures to touch the precious metal. The same can be done with jam.

In a world of 7 billion people, so each person account for about 300 000 Satoshi, or 0,003 bitcoin. According to various estimates, in the first years of bitcoin have been lost 3-4 million coins, so the real figure will be closer to 220-250 thousand Satoshi per person.

This problem has led to an exuberant rally at the end of 2017, when all coins below $ 1 worth started to grow — many thought they were “cheap”. As every coin has its reserves, the price of a coin does not matter, important only market capitalization relative to the total number of coins, and have coins future or not. During the rally a coin lost 80% of the cost, because their growth was not justified by anything reasonable.

Do Not forget that there are so many millionaires that each of them is even one bitcoin is not enough, so soon we will begin to count not in bitcoins, but in microbilling (1 thousandth of a bitcoin) or even Satoshi. Now the market capitalization of Bitcoin is 120 billion dollars, and dollars in the world released on 14 000 billion, the price obtained for all the gold — 8000 billion dollars, so bitcoin still has room to grow. At a price of 7000 dollars for one bitcoin, the price of one Satoshi — 0,007 cents, and a penny, which everyone can afford to spend or lose.

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Bitcoin Price is too volatile to invest

No One argues with the fact that the price of bitcoin is very volatile, but it's not so bad. For the first time in the history of humanity has a cryptographically secure, decentralised currency that is not tied to a Bank or a physical asset. It would be more amazing if the bitcoin stabilised. The problem of volatility will disappear by itself over time when the market capitalization of bitcoin will be comparable to the assets with which it competes — Fiat currency or gold or drops to zero.

Cryptocurrencies the most volatile, unpredictable and speculative asset class in the world, so if you invest in bitcoin or another crypt, you should know that you need to invest only what is ready to lose. Investing only what you can afford to lose, you gain something more valuable: time. If you have the time, you will never have to sell at a low price and you will be able to survive the cycles of the market, which, of course, not always growing.

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Bitcoin harms the environment

When Satoshi Nakamoto nominal first bitcoins in 2009, mine was a simple notebook and get a block for every 10 minutes as now. The Bitcoin algorithm automatically adapts to the complexity of cryptographic tasks to be achieved by the miners to confirm the block and get a reward, so an average search of one block will always leave about 10 minutes. The more resources added to the Bitcoin network, the higher the difficulty. Precisely because of the complexity of the Bitcoin network the most powerful and most safe on Earth.

The Reason why the miners have invested billions of dollars into specialized mining hardware, it lies in bitcoin value, not the increase in the number of users or transactions. While bitcoin has value, the company will invest in mining hardware to get a reward for successfully found the block. Miners spend a huge amount of electricity and are much criticized. But since the cost of electricity is the main expense for miners, they will always look for the cheapest electricity in the world. Electricity is cheaper where it is abundant, it is most often in countries with large renewable sources, so mining in countries with large hydropower, for example, may not be as bad as he is painted.

At a price of 7000 dollars per bitcoin, the current annual cost of the network of bitcoin is $ 4.6 billion, and a tangible part of it goes to pay electricity bills. But the Bitcoin network cannot be hacked by using any existing computer or technology on the planet.

And although Bitcoin has become a victim of environmental FIATA old system is also not perfect. A lot of resources devoted to the operation of data centers, creation and supply of Bank branches and of printing banknotes, among others. Only one of the US Federal reserve spends $ 700 million a year to print dollar bills. Bitcoin has become an easy target because it is relatively easy to calculate how much electricity it consumes.

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40% of all bitcoins owned 1,000 people

Another myth: allegedly 40% of bitcoins owned 1,000 people. But in reality it is not so. We know that there are 24 million bilinovich wallets. But one person can be hundreds of wallets, and one wallet to store bitcoins that belong to thousands or millions of people, making analysis the concentration of wealth among bilinovich of hontarov almost impossible.

Two wallets that hold the majority of bitcoins, was identified as cold wallets are Bittrex and Bitfinex, but anyone who for the first time they stumble, you may just think that the owners of these wallets of billionaires. In reality, these wallets keep money of thousands or millions of customers. Coinbase, for example, serves more than 10 million users. When you trust your bitcoins to the exchange, the exchange does not create a wallet specifically for you, and just makes an internal exchange.

On the other hand, most of the wallets create a new address every time there is an incoming transaction. This means that a hardware wallet that 5 times will get 0.2 bitcoin will have 1 bitcoin is divided into 5 different locations. It is impossible to determine whether these 5 addresses belong to one person. The high concentration of funds in the world of Bitcoin may be in the soil, but to provide convincing evidence of this will not be easy.

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Bitcoin used to buy drugs and launder money

In Bitcoin every transaction is public, which is not ideal for illegal activities. It is believed that only 1% of all bitcoin transactions used for money laundering. Of course, on this issue there is consensus.

The problem of the use of Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency for illegal activities is that with them there is little will to do, if you acquired them illegally. If you want to crank something illegal and suddenly decide to use bitcoins instead of cash, how do you pay for them? Most likely, you will have to go to the exchange and to start her old Fiat currency. But to do it anonymously is unlikely to succeed, because during registration is used for two procedures: KYC ("know your customer") and AML ("anti money laundering"). This crime is caught in a special Agency, overseeing the operation of the exchanges. Cash, like it or not, will long remain the currency of the criminal world number one.

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Transaction bitcoin is slow and expensive

About six months ago was held softpark (soft separation) SegWit and the theoretical maximum number of transactions per second increased from 5-7 to 20, or 1.7 million a day. This number, of course, is still far from being able to compete with existing payment systems. But the Bitcoin blockchain has never set the task to record each transaction. A lot of small transactions can be recorded outside the chain, and for this deployed network Lightning Network.

The Entire Bitcoin network was designed with the mind. The Commission is required, in order to prevent spam attacks on the network. Without a fee of any hacker could simply send millions of tiny transactions to fill the blocks and paralyze the system. The Commission ensures that only important transactions with more fee — will be processed first. And even if you need several blocks for approval of the transaction, it is still faster than the transfer through the Bank, which sometimes takes up to ten days (in the case of international transfers).

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long road Ahead

Most people still don't understand what Bitcoin is and how it works, and it will take time before they understand. When the Internet became popular about 20 years ago, many people didn't see the point of having email, because I didn't know who she is, and who is not. Bitcoin and crypt — same story. The approval of Bitcoin grows even in the middle of a bear market and it's important. For the first nine years of existence, Bitcoin has seen many UPS and downs, but unlike other bubbles, he always continued to move forward.

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