A decade ago when first Bitcoins were mined they were virtually valueless as it cost cents. Back then there were no retailers to accept cryptocurrency as a means of payment.
But on 22 May 2010 someone made a first purchase with Bitcoin. Laszlo Hanyecz bought two Papa John’s Pizzas for 10,000 BTC. And the very first official purchase using Bitcoin was documented.
Now it’s hard to believe but 10,000 BTC was only $41. At the time of writing this article, it is around $28.8 million.
The Bitcoin Creator is still Unknown
In October 2008 someone naming themselves Satoshi Nakamoto sent a "Bitcoin: A Peer-To-Peer Electronic Cash system" paper to the Cypherpunk email list. This was Bitcoin`s first entrance to the public domain. Till today Nakamoto stays completely anonymous.
Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?
And till today the debates over who invented Bitcoin and who stands behind the Satoshi name do not stop. Is it a man, a woman, an intelligence agency, or a group of cypherpunks?
The Scarcity in Supply
There’s a limited supply of Bitcoin that can be mined which is 21 million. Currently, 18.5 million Bitcoin is already mined but there is nothing to worry about as the last Bitcoin is supposed to be extracted in the year 2140.
A total of 210,000 blocks is mined every 4 years, after which the block reward is halved. The first four-year cycle was 50 BTC minted per block, and then it was halved to 25 BTC per block in 2012 and to 12.5 BTC per block in 2016. This year`s halving stays at 6.25 per block.
The “B” Power
Few know that there is a difference between “Bitcoin” with an uppercase “B” and “bitcoin” with a lowercase “b”. The "bitcoin" refers to the digital currency that performs all the transactions. The "Bitcoin" refers to the ledger that stores information about the transactions.
Don’t Lose Your Bitcoins
Never lose your Bitcoin address, which is also your private key! If this situation happens you lose all your bitcoins in your wallet. Researches show that around 60% of all BTC addresses are ghosts, which means millions of people have no access to their wallets.
The smallest Bitcoin Unit is not Satoshi
Most people still consider Satoshi to be the smallest unit of Bitcoin, however, it's not so. Bitcoin is divided into eight zeros after the decimal point; however, Satoshi can be divided as well.
The micropayments and The Lightning Network change the whole thing about it. Millisatoshi (MSAT) is one-thousandth of Satoshi and looks like the following:
1 Satoshi = 0.00000001 Bitcoin
1 Satoshi = 1 000 Millisatoshi
The FBI Owns one of the Largest BTC Wallets
When the FBI shut down the Silk Road a few years ago the Bureau acquired all the BTC from the website, which was 1.5% of the total existing bitcoins. The Silk Road was a huge black market website where BTC was quite a popular means of payment.
You can't Reverse the BTC Transactions
You can track the bank transfer and reverse it if needed. But you can never do the same with Bitcoin transactions. You can’t compensate for the money from the moment they have been sent. Once the money has been sent, you can't recoup it. It's significantly important to double-check all the manipulations you handle with Bitcoin.
No Ban
Many governments tried to completely ban Bitcoin trading and holding, still they failed. Bitcoin has an ecosystem that is impossible to absolutely ban. Of course, it can be regulated.
Although Bitcoin trading can be illegal in some countries, it didn't stop anyone till now.
Stronger than Supercomputers
Experts assure that Bitcoin networks have a computing power of around 2,046,364 Pflop/s. To compare it with the power of 500 supercomputers it would give you something like 274 Pflop/s.
