The Future Begins Now
by Marius Wlassak Business Media ConsultantPowered by Machines
Urban Legend
In the world of Bitcoin, Laszlo Hanyecz carved his name into history with a purchase of two Papa John’s pizzas.
It was a Saturday in May 2010 when a hungry Laszlo reached out to the web and asked a simple question – was there anyone out there who’d accept 10,000 Bitcoin for two pizzas?
Jeremy Sturdivant said yes – buying those pizzas with his own dollars and, however the transaction happened from there, Jeremy received the Bitcoin – then worth $80. When Bitcoin hit its all-time high, the value was closer to $200,000,000 – but we don’t know the fate of either Jeremy or those Bitcoins.
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Bitcoin has value due to the same reason the paper and digital cash does – it’s a handy form of money commonly accepted by people. It is used to transfer value and buy or sell things. Yet, unlike the US dollars, whose value and legal status are enforced by the government, Bitcoin’s value comes from its code, infrastructure, scarcity, and adoption. It’s decentralized, provides some level of transparency, can be accessed by anyone with an internet connection, is impossible to counterfeit, but can (and often is) stolen.
The scarcity aspect has helped drive prices to around $8300 (per Bitcoin) today – but with an estimated 5.9m unique users – less than one-tenth of a percent of the global population, it’s not really a mainstream currency.
Bitcoin is “mined” by using energy-hungry graphics cards which perform mathematical computations to determine the transactional processes of the Bitcoin record. So much energy is used that one study equates this to the annual energy requirement of Switzerland.
That energy is simply being used to determine the next part of the Bitcoin blockchain and it sounds like the most stupid and wasteful idea ever. If those computations were solving world problems, such as finding cures for diseases, or answering wider scientific questions then both the energy use and the resultant information would be justified. Any decent environmentalist will look at Bitcoin and just not get behind the concept.
In the world of Bitcoin, Laszlo Hanyecz carved his name into history with a purchase of two Papa John’s pizzas.
It was a Saturday in May 2010 when a hungry Laszlo reached out to the web and asked a simple question – was there anyone out there who’d accept 10,000 Bitcoin for two pizzas?
Jeremy Sturdivant said yes – buying those pizzas with his own dollars and, however the transaction happened from there, Jeremy received the Bitcoin – then worth $80. When Bitcoin hit its all-time high, the value was closer to $200,000,000 – but we don’t know the fate of either Jeremy or those Bitcoins.
Powered by Machines
Bitcoin has value due to the same reason the paper and digital cash does – it’s a handy form of money commonly accepted by people. It is used to transfer value and buy or sell things. Yet, unlike the US dollars, whose value and legal status are enforced by the government, Bitcoin’s value comes from its code, infrastructure, scarcity, and adoption. It’s decentralized, provides some level of transparency, can be accessed by anyone with an internet connection, is impossible to counterfeit, but can (and often is) stolen.
The scarcity aspect has helped drive prices to around $8300 (per Bitcoin) today – but with an estimated 5.9m unique users – less than one-tenth of a percent of the global population, it’s not really a mainstream currency.
Bitcoin is “mined” by using energy-hungry graphics cards which perform mathematical computations to determine the transactional processes of the Bitcoin record. So much energy is used that one study equates this to the annual energy requirement of Switzerland.
That energy is simply being used to determine the next part of the Bitcoin blockchain and it sounds like the most stupid and wasteful idea ever. If those computations were solving world problems, such as finding cures for diseases, or answering wider scientific questions then both the energy use and the resultant information would be justified. Any decent environmentalist will look at Bitcoin and just not get behind the concept.
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Created on Jan 23rd 2020 12:54. Viewed 772 times.
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