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You have it exactly backwards! Bitcoin, by its very nature, includes a distributed public ledger of every transaction. It's paper currency that allows anonymous transactions and encourages crime.
I don't have it backward. They just demanded a ransom in Bitcoin from some hospital in LA. If it can be tracked, those guys would be in jail right now. It was a large sum.
It's funny how bitcoin's triumph was supposed to be this decentralized system with no one in charge and yet China has emerged as the top place where mining occurs and is being controlled by fewer and fewer folks.
bitcoin's market cap is at an all time high. Had you invested in the last year or two you could have made 4X your investment.. granted it's not without risk because it's possible to lose your entire balance if you're not careful with your private key and then you have to trust the exchange to get you your money back.. but given exchanges make money from transaction fees it's unlikely the big ones would risk losing that by not being trustworthy. I didn't invest admittedly but we all make dumb investing mistakes and hindsight is always 40/20.
I got myself a "stake" of NEM.. actually 2 stakes but I lost one of them due to not having the private key and formatting my computer. One stake is 2250000 coins and it's currently in the top 10 market cap of currencies. I've been gambling that it can get even higher due to the proof of stake nature of the coin and the fact it's somewhat unique as a currency with an active community. It's been headed up the last month. If it was to reach the top 5 in market cap that would mean a substantial sum of money for me for just a little bit of work designing a logo on a forum which they ended up not using... but I was peeved when I found out I lost the other stake, lol... at it's peak one stake was worth north of $30K USD.
It's more likely you'll lose your bitcoins through your own mistakes than have them stolen.. also they're not really untraceable unless you use some website or service that "launders" them which also charges a small fee. Personally, I'd rather hold gold/silver/platinum/palladium/rhodium via a kitco pool account or ETF with my regular cash.
bitcoin's market cap is at an all time high. Had you invested in the last year or two you could have made 4X your investment.. granted it's not without risk because it's possible to lose your entire balance if you're not careful with your private key and then you have to trust the exchange to get you your money back.. but given exchanges make money from transaction fees it's unlikely the big ones would risk losing that by not being trustworthy. I didn't invest admittedly but we all make dumb investing mistakes and hindsight is always 40/20.
I got myself a "stake" of NEM.. actually 2 stakes but I lost one of them due to not having the private key and formatting my computer. One stake is 2250000 coins and it's currently in the top 10 market cap of currencies. I've been gambling that it can get even higher due to the proof of stake nature of the coin and the fact it's somewhat unique as a currency with an active community. It's been headed up the last month. If it was to reach the top 5 in market cap that would mean a substantial sum of money for me for just a little bit of work designing a logo on a forum which they ended up not using... but I was peeved when I found out I lost the other stake, lol... at it's peak one stake was worth north of $30K USD.
It's more likely you'll lose your bitcoins through your own mistakes than have them stolen.. also they're not really untraceable unless you use some website or service that "launders" them which also charges a small fee. Personally, I'd rather hold gold/silver/platinum/palladium/rhodium via a kitco pool account or ETF with my regular cash.
So when the bitcoins are stolen from exchanges are they ever recovered and given back to said owners? I know there have been a number of 8 figure + thefts
Mt gox lost 450mm
Bitstampt lost 5mm
Bitfinex lost 72mm
There is a massive incentive for a government or ruling organization to have a cashless society, not only because it will reduce crime, but it will also allow the government to track every single transaction made by US citizens. It could then create prediction models to determine how certain regulations will impact consumer behavior and the overall economy. As processing becomes mower powerful and machine learning algorithms become more sophisticated, this sort of information will be absolutely priceless.
Do people not realize that a federal republic or a democracy does not benefit those who are in power? This is a blip in human history. We were given the opportunity to rule ourselves, but we failed.
Game over is right around the corner.
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One stake is 2250000 coins and it's currently in the top 10 market cap of currencies. I've been gambling that it can get even higher due to the proof of stake nature of the coin and the fact it's somewhat unique as a currency with an active community. It's been headed up the last month. If it was to reach the top 5 in market cap that would mean a substantial sum of money for me for just a little bit of work designing a logo on a forum which they ended up not using... but I was peeved when I found out I lost the other stake, lol... at it's peak one stake was worth north of $30K USD.
