Have you heard about Electronic Money or Ecash? Yes, we all are aware about online payment, online transaction. But concept of Electronic Money is not up to the mark we are thinking. Electronic money is like digital cash fully based on cryptography which required user software having designated specific encrypted keys before sending currency to the recipient. This medium of exchanging money is defined as Cryptocurrency.
We may not have used this electronic money but we all are familiar with some cryptocurrencies which we may have known through news and social media. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, Dogecoin, Monero, Cardeno, Stellar, TRON, NO, IOTA, Tethar, Binance, Zcash, Dash, etc. these are cryptocurrencies. Among these most popular one is Bitcoin which we may heard already.
The concept of cryptographic electronic money was first conceived by the American Cryptographer David Chaum in 1983. He implemented it through the Digicash in 1995. After that so many articles have been published on this cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin is the first decentralized cryptocurrency released as open-source software in 2009 and that was created by the developer Satoshi Nakamoto. That was used by the cryptographic hash function, SHA-256. After that Namecoin was created in April 2011 and Litecoin was created in October 2011.
According to the statistical data found in Yahoo Finance, the world’s top 11 countries which are using cryptocurrency given below:-
- Nigeria – 32%
- Vietnam – 21%
- Philippines – 20%
- Turkey – 16%
- Peru – 16%
- Switzerland – 11%
- India – 9%
- China – 6%
- U.S. – 6%
- Germany – 5%
- Japan – 4%
In 2018, Indian Supreme Court banned the cryptocurrency in India. In 2019, a government panel recommended a punishment of 10 years jail on people who mine, generate, transfer, trade and deal in cryptocurrencies. Central Bank is working to launch digital currency in India.
Lets discuss about the advantages and disadvantages of cryptocurrency.
Advantages of Cryptocurrency:-
- Whether it is domestic transaction or international transaction in cryptocurrencies, the verification process requires very less time. So, it is the fastest way to transfer fund.
- Without any transaction fees money can be send across the border or exchange by using cryptocurrency and there is no need to take support from any third party like Paypal or VISA for transaction verification.
- Cryptocurrencies are controlled by the developers who have significant amount of the coin in their wallet. For the purpose of stability and security decentralization process woks more so that no organization can determine flow and value of the coin.
- Blockchain ledger is used for the purpose of privacy and security based on mathematical puzzles which are hard to decode by any hacker.
Disadvantages of Cryptocurrency:-
- Government cannot track down wallet address of individual who uses cryptocurrencies because cryptocurrency transaction has high security and privacy. Thus, for this reason cryptocurrency also used for illegal transaction to convert black money into clean.
- There is no backup system if the system crash suddenly. If any user loses private key to their wallet then there is no chance to get it back. No recovery option. So, all the physical cash put under the cryptocurrency will be loss.
- Cryptocurrencies are secure but money exchanges are not secure. While exchanging money users’ wallet IDs are stored in data for proper use. Hackers can easily hack those IDs and access those on their benefits.
- If funds send to the wrong wallet address by mistake then there is no way to get back the fund from the wrong wallet addressee to the sender’s wallet address.
- Advanced computer system and high electricity power input is needed for mining cryptocurrencies.
In spite of lacking global backing in cryptocurrency, the popularity of it still increasing because of the support of the billionaire tycoons like Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk and Michael Nobogratz.
After this much of article most of the readers can ask for the process of cryptocurrency investment. That also discussed below in steps.
- Need to find a Crypto exchange – There are some popular crypto exchanges in India like CoinSwitch Kuber, WazirX and CoinDCX. One has to be an investor of Crypto.
- Need to create an account – One has to create an account after deciding in which crypto exchange he/she wants to be a crypto investor.
- Need to deposit money – Now it’s the time to deposit money in this step to buy crypto. Linkage between back account and crypto account need to be verified.
- Need to purchase – Once decided one needs to invest money to buy one’s own crypto coin.
- Storage is needed – A strong secure storage is needed. Crypto accounts are hacked by the hackers while crypto exchange. If the private encrypted key is forgotten by the user then there is no way to get back the crypto account. So, beware.
Recently, the price of one Bitcoin is around 40,000 US dollar. Billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper predicting this Bitcoin price will reach to 2,50,000 US dollar by 2022.
Facebook is also preparing to create cryptocurrency and the name of the cryptocurrency may be ‘Stablecoin’. In India, Reliance Jio is also trying to create cryptocurrency soon in the name of ‘Jiocoin’. A team 50 young developers are engaged in this dream work and that one is leading by Akash Ambani, son of Mukesh Ambani.
Now, the India and the whole world are waiting for the best secure cryptocurrency.
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