A Bitcoin Primer
Momentum Public Relations
Blog: March 26 2018
Some of us know a little, some of us know a lot, but most of us haven’t got the foggiest notion of what a Bitcoin or a cryptocurrency is.
If you follow the news, you will have noted that media coverage is increasing. On Thursday March 15th, CNBC reported that the value of global cryptocurrencies fell from US$372.9 billion to US$310.4 billion. According to Digital Trends there are 1,300 cryptocurrencies in existence. Among them are Dash, Ethereum, Litecoin and Plasma.
Investing in them may be a dangerous gamble, even Venezuela has floated a cryptocurrency, the Petro. Financial Post columnist Diane Francis has ranked them on a par with the Bre-X scandal, Canadian Tire money and has advised investors to avoid them like the plague.
The reason for the recent fall in value was mainly twofold, the threat of increasing regulation and the actions of the trustee for Mt Gox a bankrupt Japanese bitcoin clearing house, who flooded the market with bitcoins in an attempt to pay off creditors.
The slide in value was also pushed along by the news that first Facebook in January and then Google in March banned advertising for cyptocurrencies, wallets and ICOs. Highly volatile, the value of bitcoins fell from US$20,000 in 2017 to US$8,219 a bitcoin on March 15th.
Cryptocurrencies are a digital currency. They aren’t backed by any national bank or regulated by any government or financial regulatory agency. Their only value is what you think it is and that may end up being nothing at all or a great deal.
Bitcoins are generated by solving complex mathematical puzzles. A process which makes seeing any real value in them difficult. It is a process which consumes a great deal of electricity. Wallets are applications that store cryptocurrencies on your computer and ICOs are Initial Coin Offerings which take place when a new cryptocurrency is launched.
Along with last week’s fall in cryptocurrency value, other recent news headlines include Plattsburg, New York’s decision to stop selling cheap electricity to bitcoin miners because they have driven the cost of electricity up for other residents and the arrival of a bitcoin mining operation in Sherbrooke, Quebec where Sherbrooke Hydro offers cheap electricity.
Quebec-based Bitfarm says that its Sherbrooke operation will employ up to 250 people. The company has operations in several communities in Quebec’s Eastern Townships. Bitfarm is reportedly spending $250 million to set up its Sherbrooke operation.
Bitcoin miners from as far afield as China have been reported as eyeing Quebec because of its comparatively cheap electrical rates.
All of this was topped by the announcement by Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard that bitcoin miners were not welcome in the province because they didn’t provide any added value for Quebec. Quebec may even decide to deter bitcoin operations by increasing the amount Hydro Quebec charges them for electricity.
It appears that while we were napping and concentrating on real stocks with real products and real business plans that the business of cryptocurrencies has become the object of intense speculation.
American financial regulators have allowed the trading of bitcoin futures. There is even a company, HashChain, trading on the TSXV and OTCQB that along with being an active bitcoin miner, offers tax software targeted at the fast and exciting world of cryptocurrency.
By their very nature cryptocurrencies are shadowy and elusive. Murky because we don’t really know who bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto is, or if he actually ever existed. Nakamoto has said via internet posts that he lived in Japan but the internet server he used was a free one located in Germany.
Even the name is a little confusing. Merriam Webster defines crypto as a “person who adheres or belongs secretly to a party, sect or other group.” The word was coined in 1946 and most commonly used in a compound form, crypto-communist, crypto-fascist, etc.
Crypto in cryptocurrency, instead refers to the fact that transactions on a cryptocurrency network are encrypted, safe and secure.
In 2008 Nakamoto posted a paper on the creation of a cryptocurrency on a cryptographers message board. During 2009 he launched bitcoin. By 2010 Nakamoto had handed bitcoin over to another developer, Gavin Andreson who had helped develop bitcoin technology. Nakamoto stopped posting on bitcoin forums in 2010 and hasn’t been heard of since.
The benefits of a cryptocurrency or rather, the technology behind it could be very large. Blockchain technology promises to make transactions faster and ensure privacy. Bitcoin was initially developed during the 2008 banking crash and subsequent recession.
Some supporters see cryptocurrencies as a cure all for economic woes because cryptocurrencies are not state regulated. Because they are not regulated they can’t be used to provide economic stimulation that in turn devalues currency. Others believe they can eliminate credit card fraud, provide a financial safe haven for people living in war zones and the ability to provide people without bank accounts a safe way to transfer money.
While most of these are laudable desires, the true value in cryptocurrencies probably lies in the development of blockchain technology that allows cryptocurrencies to make fast, safe and easy transactions.
Cryptocurrencies had been dreamed of and worked on since the 1990s but Nakamoto was the first to solve the basic problem which had held development back, how to prevent people from simply cutting and pasting their digital currency again and again. This is called the double spend.
To put it a little more simply, he developed a system that would prevent digital currency fraud. He did this by creating a central registry or ledger that would be maintained by members of the bitcoin community in a variety of locations. Because every ledger entry is checked against other nodes in the network fraud becomes impossible.
The central registry and bitcoins themselves depend on blockchain technology. Cryptocurrencies are based on the idea of making transactions quicker and simpler by bypassing government control of currency. It does this by storing information across a peer to peer network, a blockchain. This can be better understood if you think of the blockchain as an operating system and bitcoin as the application that runs on it.
Bitcoins and for the most part other cryptocurrencies are generated by what is called mining. This is a computer intensive activity whereby a series of computers are strung together to solve a mathematical puzzle. The first “miner” to solve the problem is rewarded with a set number of bitcoins. The amount of electricity this uses globally is equivalent to all the electricity used by Ireland.
Wired has an excellent guide to bitcoins and cryptocurrencies which you can read by following this link. Next week this blog will explore the reasons behind calls for an intense regulatory regime for cryptocurrencies and some of the reasons why some investors won’t touch them with a ten foot pole.