Economics of bitcoin
Bitcoin is a digital asset designed by its inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto, to work as a currency.
Classification
Bitcoin is a digital asset designed by its inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto, to work as a currency. It is commonly referred to with terms like: digital currency,:1 digital cash, virtual currency, electronic currency, digital gold, or cryptocurrency.
The question whether bitcoin is a currency or not is disputed. Bitcoins have three useful qualities in a currency, according to The Economist in January 2015: they are "hard to earn, limited in supply and easy to verify". Economists define money as a store of value, a medium of exchange and a unit of account, and agree that bitcoin has some way to go to meet all these criteria. It does best as a medium of exchange: As of March 2014, the bitcoin market suffered from volatility, limiting the ability of bitcoin to act as a stable store of value, and retailers accepting bitcoin use other currencies as their principal unit of account.
Classification of bitcoin by the United States government is to date unclear with multiple conflicting rulings. In 2013 Judge Amos L. Mazzant III of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas stated that "Bitcoin is a currency or form of money". In July 2016, Judge Teresa Mary Pooler of Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court of Florida cleared Michell Espinoza in State of Florida v. Espinoza in money-laundering charges he faced involving his use of bitcoin. Judge Pooler stated "Bitcoin may have some attributes in common with what we commonly refer to as money, but differ in many important aspects, they are certainly not tangible wealth and cannot be hidden under a mattress like cash and gold bars." In September 2016, a ruling by Judge Alison J. Nathan of United States District Court for the Southern District of New York contradicted the Florida Espinoza ruling stating "Bitcoins are funds within the plain meaning of that term.— Bitcoins can be accepted as a payment for goods and services or bought directly from an exchange with a bank account. They therefore function as pecuniary resources and are used as a medium of exchange and a means of payment." The U.S. Treasury categorizes bitcoin as a decentralized virtual currency. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission classifies bitcoin as a commodity, and the Internal Revenue Service classifies it as an asset.
The South African Revenue Service, the legislation of Canada, the Ministry of Finance of the Czech Republic and several others classify bitcoin as an intangible asset.
The Bundesbank says that bitcoin is not a virtual currency or digital money. It recommends using the term "crypto token."
The People's Bank of China has stated that bitcoin "is fundamentally not a currency but an investment target".
Journalists and academics also debate what to call bitcoin. Some media outlets do make a distinction between "real" money and bitcoins, while others call bitcoin real money. The Wall Street Journal declared it a commodity in December 2013. A Forbes journalist referred to it as digital collectible. Two University of Amsterdam computer scientists proposed the term "money-like informational commodity". In a 2016 Forbes article, bitcoin was characterized as a member of a new asset class.
In addition to the above, bitcoin is also characterized as a payment system.:1
General use
According to research produced by Cambridge University in 2017, there are between 2.9 million and 5.8 million unique users actively using a cryptocurrency wallet, most of them using bitcoin. The number of active users has grown significantly since 2013 (there were 0.3 to 1.3 million unique users at the time).
Buying and selling
Bitcoins can be bought and sold both on- and offline. Participants in online exchanges offer bitcoin buy and sell bids. Using an online exchange to obtain bitcoins entails some risk, and, according to a study published in April 2013, 45% of exchanges fail and take client bitcoins with them. Exchanges have since implemented measures to provide proof of reserves in an effort to convey transparency to users. Offline, bitcoins may be purchased directly from an individual or at a bitcoin ATM. Bitcoin machines are not however traditional ATMs. Bitcoin kiosks are machines connected to the Internet, allowing the insertion of cash in exchange for bitcoins. Bitcoin kiosks do not connect to a bank and may also charge transaction fees as high as 7% and exchange rates US$50 over rates from elsewhere.
As of 2016 it was estimated there were over 800 bitcoin ATMs operating globally, the majority (500+) being in the United States.
Price and volatility
According to Mark T. Williams, as of 2014, bitcoin has volatility seven times greater than gold, eight times greater than the S%story%P 500, and 18 times greater than the U.S. dollar.
Attempting to explain the high volatility, a group of Japanese scholars stated that there is no stabilization mechanism. The Bitcoin Foundation contends that high volatility is due to insufficient liquidity, while a Forbes journalist claims that it is related to the uncertainty of its long-term value, and the high volatility of a startup currency makes sense, "because people are still experimenting with the currency to figure out how useful it is."
There are uses where volatility does not matter, such as online gambling, tipping, and international remittances. As of 2014, pro-bitcoin venture capitalists argued that the greatly increased trading volume that planned high-frequency trading exchanges would generate is needed to decrease price volatility.
The price of bitcoins has gone through various cycles of appreciation and depreciation referred to by some as bubbles and busts. In 2011, the value of one bitcoin rapidly rose from about US$0.30 to US$32 before returning to US$2. In the latter half of 2012 and during the 2012–13 Cypriot financial crisis, the bitcoin price began to rise, reaching a high of US$266 on 10 April 2013, before crashing to around US$50. On 29 November 2013, the cost of one bitcoin rose to the all-time peak of US$1,242. Some evidence suggests that part of this peak in the price of bitcoin was due to price manipulation. In 2014, the price fell sharply, and as of April remained depressed at little more than half 2013 prices. As of August 2014 it was under US$600.
In January 2015, noting that the bitcoin price had dropped to its lowest level since spring 2013 – around US$224 – The New York Times suggested that "ith no signs of a rally in the offing, the industry is bracing for the effects of a prolonged decline in prices. In particular, bitcoin mining companies, which are essential to the currency's underlying technology, are flashing warning signs." Also in January 2015, Business Insider reported that deep web drug dealers were "freaking out" as they lost profits through being unable to convert bitcoin revenue to cash quickly enough as the price declined – and that there was a danger that dealers selling reserves to stay in business might force the bitcoin price down further.
Economic theory suggests that the volatility of the price of bitcoin will drop when business and consumer usage of bitcoin increases. The reason is that the usage for payments reduces the sensitivity of the exchange rate to the beliefs of speculators about the future value of a virtual currency. According to The Wall Street Journal, as of April 2016, bitcoin is starting to look slightly more stable than gold. On 3 March 2017, the price of one bitcoin has surpassed the value of an ounce of gold for the first time and its price surged to an all-time high. A study in Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, going back though the network's historical data, showed the value of the bitcoin network as measured by the price of bitcoins, to be roughly proportional to the square of the number of daily unique users participating on the network. This is a form of Metcalfe's law and suggests that the network was demonstrating network effects proportional to its level of user adoption.
As a speculative bubble
Further information: Cryptocurrency bubble
Bitcoin has been characterized as a speculative bubble by eight laureates of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences: Paul Krugman, Robert J. Shiller, Joseph Stiglitz, Richard Thaler, James Heckman, Thomas Sargent, Angus Deaton, and Oliver Hart; and by central bank officials including Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen, Agustín Carstens, Vítor Constâncio, and Nout Wellink.
The investors Warren Buffett and George Soros have respectively characterized it as a "mirage" and a "bubble"; while the business executive Jack Ma has called it a "bubble".
Views of economists
In 2014, Nobel laureate Robert J. Shiller stated that bitcoin "exhibited many of the characteristics of a speculative bubble"; in 2017, Shiller wrote that bitcoin was the best current example of a speculative bubble.
Economist John Quiggin in 2013 said "bitcoins are the most demonstrably valueless financial asset ever created".
Researchers Neil Gandal, JT Hamrick, Tyler Moore, and Tali Oberman claimed that in late 2013, price manipulation by one person likely caused a price spike from US$150 to more than US$1000.
Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz in 2017 said "It’s a bubble that’s going to give a lot of people a lot of exciting times as it rides up and then goes down." He emphasized its use by criminals, its lack of a socially useful purpose, and said that it should be outlawed.
Nobel laureate Paul Krugman wrote in 2018 that bitcoin is "a bubble wrapped in techno-mysticism inside a cocoon of libertarian ideology". He criticized it as a very slow and expensive means of payment, used mostly to buy blackmarket goods, without a "tether to reality".
Nobel laureate Richard Thaler emphasizes the irrationality in the bitcoin market that has led to the bubble, demonstrating the irrationality with the example of firms that have added the word blockchain to their names which have then had large increases in their stock price. The extremely high volatility in bitcoin's price also is due to irrationality according to Thaler.
Four Nobel laureates, James Heckman, Thomas Sargent, Angus Deaton, and Oliver Hart, characterized bitcoin as a bubble at a joint press conference in 2018. Hart cited Christopher Sims's work showing no intrinsic value to bitcoin. Heckman compared bitcoin to the tulip bubble. Deaton pointed to bitcoin's use by criminals.
Professor Nouriel Roubini of New York University has called bitcoin the "mother of all bubbles", writing that the underlying blockchain technology has "massive obstacles standing in its way", including a lack of "common and universal protocols" of the kind that enabled the early Internet. According to Roubini, bitcoin has failed as a unit of account, a means of payment, and as a store of value; he calls the claim that bitcoin cannot be debased "fraudulent". "Scammers, swindlers, charlatans, and carnival barkers (all conflicted insiders) have tapped into clueless retail investors' FOMO ('fear of missing out'), and taken them for a ride," he writes.
Views of central bank officials
Early claims that bitcoin was a bubble focused on the lack of any intrinsic value of bitcoin. These claims include that of former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in 2013. He stated "You really have to stretch your imagination to infer what the intrinsic value of Bitcoin is. I haven't been able to do it."
In 2017 Greenspan compared bitcoin to the Continental dollar, which ultimately collapsed. He said "Humans buy all sorts of things that aren't worth anything. People gamble in casinos when the odds are against them. It has never stopped anybody."
Former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke (in 2015) and outgoing Fed Chair Janet Yellen (in 2017) have both expressed concerns about the stability of bitcoin's price and its lack of use as a medium of transactions.
Agustín Carstens, head of the Bank of International Settlements, has called bitcoin "a combination of a bubble, a Ponzi scheme and an environmental disaster", and warned of cryptocurrencies undermining public trust in the financial system.
David Andolfatto, a vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, stated, "Is bitcoin a bubble? Yes, if bubble is defined as a liquidity premium." According to Andolfatto, the price of bitcoin "consists purely of a bubble".:21
Comparisons of bitcoin to the tulip mania of seventeenth-century Holland have been made by the vice-president of the European Central Bank, Vítor Constâncio and by former president of the Dutch Central Bank, Nout Wellink. In 2013, Wellink remarked, "This is worse than the tulip mania At least then you got a tulip [at the end], now you get nothing."
bitcoin пузырь bitcoin gadget bitcoin asic bitcoin cranes криптовалют ethereum валюта bitcoin plasma ethereum Antpoolhabr bitcoin
ethereum перевод
миксер bitcoin
bitcoin changer qiwi bitcoin bitcoin приложение bazar bitcoin bitcoin exchanges yandex bitcoin ethereum обмен magic bitcoin bitcoin scan запуск bitcoin bitcoin genesis зарабатывать bitcoin tether wallet win bitcoin bitcoin коды ethereum wallet bitcoin информация Although early on in Bitcoin's history individuals may have been able to compete for blocks with a regular at-home computer, this is no longer the case. The reason for this is that the difficulty of mining Bitcoin changes over time. In order to ensure the smooth functioning of the blockchain and its ability to process and verify transactions, the Bitcoin network aims to have one block produced every 10 minutes or so. However, if there are one million mining rigs competing to solve the hash problem, they'll likely reach a solution faster than a scenario in which 10 mining rigs are working on the same problem. For that reason, Bitcoin is designed to evaluate and adjust the difficulty of mining every 2,016 blocks, or roughly every two weeks. When there is more computing power collectively working to mine for Bitcoin, the difficulty level of mining increases in order to keep block production at a stable rate. Less computing power means the difficulty level decreases. To get a sense of just how much computing power is involved, when Bitcoin launched in 2009 the initial difficulty level was one. As of Nov. 2019, it is more than 13 trillion.cryptocurrency dash
bitcoin media ethereum stats bitcoin государство bitcoin xyz bitcoin информация difficulty monero parity ethereum график bitcoin
ethereum contracts moneybox bitcoin история ethereum 2016 bitcoin
bitcoin transaction lavkalavka bitcoin bitcoin презентация While transparency is a very desirable trait, the fact remains that enterprises don’t want to use a network wherein any average Joe can peek into their daily dealings and be a party to some confidential information.скачать bitcoin
tether provisioning bitcoin iq ethereum обвал команды bitcoin
bitcoin xbt
ethereum course форум bitcoin bitcoin ishlash иконка bitcoin bitcointalk monero значок bitcoin майнер monero вебмани bitcoin ethereum телеграмм bitcoin etf lealana bitcoin investment bitcoin bitcoin grafik bitcoin продать ethereum упал bitcoin metal
Every Bitcoin user faces the problem of securely storing their money. Unlike the banking system, there’s little recourse when things go wrong, and little margin for error. Thefts and losses can be prevented, but they can’t be rolled back. Preventing these losses is the goal of cold storage.bitcoin background monero btc Lee designed Litecoin based on the Bitcoin code and protocol, with some modifications that he believed addressed certain barriers to its wider adoption. Firstly, the block confirmation time is 4 times lower on Litecoin compared to Bitcoin (2.5 min vs. 10 min) which allows Litecoin to confirm transactions much faster. Another difference is the limit on the maximum amount of coins: for Bitcoin it is 21M, while for Litecoin – 84M. Finally, some technical elements of Litecoin make it less susceptible to centralization of mining operations and more attractive to smaller-scale miners.They add a new layer of risk to forex trading, exacerbated by the extreme volatility of crypto-currencies.poker bitcoin транзакции ethereum разработчик ethereum
майнинга bitcoin mmm bitcoin
bitcoin перспективы bitcoin s bitcoin сервера bitcoin market china cryptocurrency tether обменник bitcoin crane майн bitcoin bitcoin click блокчейн bitcoin bitcoin сокращение monero кошелек эпоха ethereum
bitcoin scanner 0 bitcoin monero free ethereum сбербанк миксер bitcoin lamborghini bitcoin сеть ethereum bitcoin c комиссия bitcoin parity ethereum bitcoin картинки While some other tangible commodities do have intrinsic value, that value is generally much less than its trading price. Consider for example that gold, if it were not used as an inflation-proof store of value, but rather only for its industrial uses, would certainly not be worth what it is today, since the industrial requirements for gold are far smaller than the available supply thereof.ethereum акции short bitcoin пул monero sportsbook bitcoin rus bitcoin tether apk zona bitcoin reddit bitcoin bitcoin rpg bitcoin signals hashrate ethereum bitcoin doubler работа bitcoin production cryptocurrency
проект ethereum ethereum blockchain bitcoin rt bitcoin china
ethereum покупка cryptocurrency trading bitcoin 2017 txid ethereum bitcoin code bitcoin sportsbook bitcoin safe ethereum info ethereum bitcoin dag ethereum
бесплатные bitcoin claymore monero bitcoin transactions alpari bitcoin free bitcoin
будущее bitcoin ethereum видеокарты ethereum история
fast bitcoin bitcoin suisse bitcoin регистрации bitcoin страна tera bitcoin bitcoin платформа биржа ethereum ютуб bitcoin bitcoin вконтакте bitcoin code ecopayz bitcoin bitcoin валюта login bitcoin doubler bitcoin tether обменник использование bitcoin yandex bitcoin bitcoin center rus bitcoin bitcoin usd алгоритм bitcoin обменники bitcoin loans bitcoin lazy bitcoin bitcoin maps importprivkey bitcoin bitcoin qiwi kraken bitcoin bitcoin network calc bitcoin bitcoin github bitcoin лотерея boxbit bitcoin bitcoin даром monero calculator кошелька bitcoin ethereum перевод
happy bitcoin sberbank bitcoin ethereum news продам ethereum bitcoin png exchange ethereum
bitcoin аккаунт bitcoin attack 600 bitcoin покер bitcoin p2pool monero адрес ethereum
service bitcoin ethereum core microsoft ethereum store bitcoin forum ethereum bitcoin code bitcoin cryptocurrency статистика ethereum bitcoin начало
bitcoin casascius bitcoin cfd bitcoin деньги кошельки bitcoin Conventional payment methods such as a credit card charge, bank draft, personal check, or wire transfer benefit from being insured and reversible by the banks involved. In the case of bitcoins, every time bitcoins change hands and change wallets, the result is final. Simultaneously, there is no insurance protection for a bitcoin wallet. If a wallet's hard drive data or the wallet password is lost, the wallet's contents are gone forever.Cryptocurrencytether обменник ethereum info ethereum ротаторы plasma ethereum токен bitcoin bitcoin count bitcoin gambling bitcoin help best bitcoin monero вывод ethereum bitcoin краны bitcoin rotators
кошелька bitcoin bitcoin purse bitcoin qiwi bitcoin hyip
bitcoin установка
майн ethereum
bitcoin capital bitcoin шахта bitcoin pools теханализ bitcoin boxbit bitcoin bitcoin goldmine tether addon
ethereum info bitcoin видеокарты проекты bitcoin bitcoin форум хардфорк ethereum ethereum биржи
bitcoin neteller фермы bitcoin bitcoin pay bitcoin 4pda bitcoin ios bcc bitcoin bitcoin автоматический калькулятор monero email bitcoin bitcoin онлайн email bitcoin bitcoin galaxy
майн bitcoin bitcoin x2 micro bitcoin avto bitcoin bitcoin click ethereum wikipedia bitcoin магазин monero proxy bitcoin click
bitcoin suisse rates bitcoin ethereum проблемы обменять monero bitcoin blue шрифт bitcoin дешевеет bitcoin 20 bitcoin
moneypolo bitcoin bitcoin 2020 ethereum вики инструкция bitcoin скачать tether код bitcoin торрент bitcoin ethereum упал bitcoin москва оборот bitcoin
bitcoin stealer game bitcoin
bitcoin 100 bitcoin cranes bitcoin обозначение bitcoin скачать bitcoin debian cryptocurrency charts why cryptocurrency monero poloniex monero pro майн ethereum monero amd bitcoin стоимость bitcoin up cpa bitcoin bitcoin paypal tether chvrches ethereum mine разработчик bitcoin titan bitcoin bonus bitcoin bitcoin магазины adc bitcoin запросы bitcoin keystore ethereum bitcoin fields bitcoin machines падение bitcoin monero криптовалюта
ethereum сбербанк Litecoin mining is the processing of a block of transactions into the Litecoin blockchain.bitcoin ira bitcointalk ethereum monero address bitcoin сша вики bitcoin bitcoin stellar asics bitcoin bitcoin 3d avto bitcoin создатель ethereum bitcoin bitrix Merchants often deposit and display prices in their local currency. In other cases, Bitcoin works similarly to a foreign currency. To get appropriate guidance regarding tax compliance for your own jurisdiction, you should contact a qualified accountant.Emailworking remotely, the commoditization of computation and data storageDApps: Decentralized Finance (DeFi) has been touted as the future of finance and one of the biggest drivers of blockchain adoption. One of the most wonderful features of these dApps happens to be their composability. In other words, you can combine different DeFi products/applications with ease. As such, stablecoins can be easily integrated with DeFi apps to encourage in-app purchases and build an internal economy.bitcoin компьютер bitcoin 0 bitcoin capitalization bitcoin pool bitcoin кран bitcoin greenaddress cryptocurrency gold ethereum пул bitcoin etherium rocket bitcoin tracker bitcoin block bitcoin ethereum клиент 777 bitcoin electrum ethereum tether usb bitcoin venezuela ethereum faucet ethereum обменять bitcoin ферма java bitcoin удвоитель bitcoin crococoin bitcoin компания bitcoin bitcoin qazanmaq компиляция bitcoin bitcoin лучшие bitcoin loan доходность ethereum amazon bitcoin bitcoin программирование bitcoin обменник bitcoin автосерфинг bitcoin форки сети ethereum продать ethereum etoro bitcoin перспективы bitcoin иконка bitcoin tether 2 вход bitcoin mining bitcoin autobot bitcoin вывод bitcoin торрент bitcoin кран ethereum будущее ethereum расчет bitcoin bitcoin neteller bitcoin клиент bitcoin conveyor bitcoin mail trade bitcoin
ava bitcoin
bitcoin go monero news bitcoin pools ethereum code double bitcoin bitcoin golang wisdom bitcoin captcha bitcoin bitcoin игры wallets cryptocurrency ethereum бесплатно яндекс bitcoin ethereum токен web3 ethereum bitcoin аккаунт
buy ethereum
bitcoin market bitcoin обменник криптовалюты bitcoin
bitcoin акции bazar bitcoin bitcoin конференция сети bitcoin tether пополнить сложность monero bitcoin деньги ethereum platform tether mining bitcoin сети 1969. IEEE.22 The Union of Concerned Scientists is formed at MIT.bitcoin ocean bitcoin онлайн cryptocurrency gold bitcoin fake автомат bitcoin сервер bitcoin bitcoin masters the ethereum заработка bitcoin bitcoin игры ethereum токены bitcoin usd difficulty bitcoin займ bitcoin bitcoin картинки bitcoin ads
bitcoin rotators bitcoin work locals bitcoin programming bitcoin The identity of the person or persons who created the technology is still a mystery. Bitcoin offers the promise of lower transaction fees than traditional online payment mechanisms and is operated by a decentralized authority, unlike government-issued currencies.bitcoin динамика By LUKE CONWAYbitcoin видеокарты
metropolis ethereum пулы monero
bitcoin 4 ethereum calc bitcoin captcha transactions bitcoin сервисы bitcoin coffee bitcoin bitcoin автоматически алгоритм bitcoin bitcoin падение bitcoin pro unconfirmed bitcoin nicehash bitcoin bitcoin kazanma Then all Bitcoin mining is done remotely in the cloud. This enables the owners to not deal with any of the hassles usually encountered when mining bitcoins such as electricity, hosting issues, heat, installation or upkeep trouble.вложения bitcoin antminer bitcoin запрет bitcoin CRYPTOLitecoin can also be used to pay for goods and services using payment processors that accept bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on behalf of merchants.bitcoin ротатор
tether комиссии fasterclick bitcoin bitcoin rub bitcoin spin bitcoin лопнет приложение bitcoin падение ethereum bitcoin rpg cardano cryptocurrency
bitcoin котировка депозит bitcoin monero cpu car bitcoin dollar bitcoin ethereum обмен doubler bitcoin stock bitcoin куплю ethereum рулетка bitcoin all cryptocurrency q bitcoin пополнить bitcoin safe bitcoin global bitcoin today bitcoin habrahabr bitcoin Storage: Store information about an application, such as domain registration information or membership records. Storage in a blockchain like Ethereum is unique in that the data is immutable and can't be erased. обменники bitcoin invest bitcoin bitcoin информация
foto bitcoin bitcoin trading майн ethereum tether 4pda king bitcoin ethereum microsoft майнить bitcoin ethereum видеокарты значок bitcoin zcash bitcoin fasterclick bitcoin bitcoin graph space bitcoin erc20 ethereum testnet bitcoin bitcoin кошельки ethereum заработок is bitcoin bank bitcoin bitcoin kurs bitcoin bounty
перевод bitcoin bitcoin attack bitcoin зебра bitcoin автоматический bitcoin utopia siiz bitcoin For most individuals participating in the Bitcoin network, the ins and outs of the blockchain, hash rates and mining are not particularly relevant. Outside of the mining community, Bitcoin owners usually purchase their cryptocurrency supply through a Bitcoin exchange. These are online platforms that facilitate transactions of Bitcoin and, often, other digital currencies.bitcoin talk bitcoin бесплатно bitcoin trend
100 bitcoin
bitcoin clock bitcoin кошельки love bitcoin dwarfpool monero bitcoin москва ethereum supernova bitcoin инструкция bitcoin s bitcoin hash bitcoin коллектор
exmo bitcoin опционы bitcoin bitcoin анимация bitcoin вебмани live bitcoin neteller bitcoin
форекс bitcoin bitcoin linux
tether верификация ethereum биржа bitcoin wsj