1. The Enigmatic Inventor
Although it is said and believed that back in 2009, an individual or a group of some individuals, who appear to be known as ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’, invented the cryptocurrency system by introducing the Bitcoin System. Soon after this, these people or the individual subsequently went away the next year, in 2010, and ever since then have not appeared or have been traced or identified. Similar to his identity, his presence has never been spotted ever since and it is not known if they are alive or dead. It is believed that the only contact or link people had with him was via emails and a few other virtual platforms. Their Bitcoin wallet is estimated to contain 0.98 million BTC, making him one of the wealthiest in the world.
2. Losing BTC
One of the facts about BTC, also considered to be a key drawback, is the vulnerability of losing them. Losing the ownership of your bitcoins is as simple as just losing control of your BTC address, also known as the owner’s private key. Once this key is lost, not only do you lose the key but also all your coins stored within that key and these cannot be reclaimed. According to a research, almost 60% of all BTC addresses are ghosts, implying that a major part of the BTC owner’s community have lost control of their keys and henceforth have no further access to their BTC wallets. Visit https://thebitcoinsystem.io/ to learn more about how to efficiently manage and trade your bitcoins.
3. Requirement of Massive Processing Power
Mining bitcoins is a very extensive and resource consuming process. Not only is it very costly, but it also requires you to pay huge chunks of your valuable resources in the form of time, money and electricity. The quicker the data is processed, the more quickly the block can be added to the blockchain, which means that you get hold of your BTC more quickly.
4. Huge Amounts of Power Consumption
The power consumption for mining the bitcoins is massive. This can be demonstrated by the fact that Ireland, which is the second highest country in Europe, in terms of the population, consumes almost 5,000 kilowatt hours of electricity every year. However, when we combine every bitcoin mining farm in the world, it is estimated that they consume approximately 60 terawatt hours of electricity. Compare this figure with Ireland, and you’ll see that the second most populated country in Europe consumes less electricity when compared with all the BTC mining firms.
5. Limited Acceptance of BTC – Banned in Some Countries
We know that countries like the United States and Canada have not only allowed and accepted BTC and other digital currencies but are also promoting it. However, there are a lot of nations, who haven’t accepted or approved the circulation of bitcoins. Nations such as Iceland, Bolivia and Bangladesh have put an absolute ban on BTC. Others, such as India and Iran etcetera have, although, not placed a ban on the usage of digital currencies, but do not approve it as legal tender and also alert their citizens to be careful while using these virtual assets.
6. BTC are not infinite – There is a Limit
For people who think of BTC as fiat, they are mistaken. Unlike fiat, which is generated again and again, BTC has a total limit. There are only 21 million bitcoins which can be mined. Currently, 18.5 million of these BTC have been mined, leaving behind 2.5 remaining ones. Total bitcoins will be mined till 2140, and up till then bitcoins will be consistently mined. We need to understand how miners are rewarded to understand this phenomenon. After adding every new block to the blockchain, the miners are given 12.5 bitcoins. This value is then halved after every 4 years.
7. Distinction Between Bitcoin and bitcoin
There are two different meanings associated with the two different versions of the term “Bitcoin”. Bitcoin with an uppercase ‘B’ is basically the ledger in which the transaction information of bitcoins is stored, whereas the term ‘bitcoin’ with a lowercase ‘b’ refers to the name of the cryptocurrency itself. Strange, isn’t it? Not a lot of people are aware of this difference.
8. Bitcoin Network Is Faster Than Supercomputers
When we look at the rapidest super computer which currently exists in the world, its processing speed is equivalent to 122.3 petaflops. When we analyze the whole network of bitcoin, its processing power equated to almost 80.7 million petaflops. However, it must be noted that a super computer is capable of performing billions of actions and processed while the Bitcoin network is only capable of adding additional blocks to the blockchain.
