Much ado about Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency is a medium of exchange just as other physical currencies such as the United States dollars, Nigerian Naira, and what have you. The only difference is that cryptocurrency is digital and cannot be seen or touched like paper money. It uses digital security features such as encryption and Cryptography to avoid counterfeiters and fraud, secure transactions, and generate its units of currency.

Created in 2008—cryptocurrency was introduced in 2009 amidst the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis. This hard hit on the economic system of the world gave rise to an uproar against the government for various reasons. They claimed that the banking system could not be trusted, as they were not able to have full control over their hard-earned monies. Moreso, they could have their financial assets seized or frozen for no good reason. So in reality, people had no control over their money. Bitcoin solves this problem. It proved to give back the control seized from the people. They wouldn’t have to rely on the government, banks, or any centralized entity anymore.

Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency to be known. Although there are no clear details on who created it, a group of persons who go by the pseudonym “Satoshi Nakamoto” created Bitcoin in 2009.

You could think “Well, we aren’t experiencing the aftermath of a global financial crisis. I haven’t even experienced any restrictions on the control I have over my financial assets so far”. Although I think we are in a global economic crisis as a result of the CoronaVirus pandemic.

Nonetheless, here are a couple of reasons why you should go for cryptocurrency:

1. The global shift towards a digital ecosystem

The Global economy is gradually and inevitably moving towards a digital ecosystem. From investment to money transfer, everything is going paperless. The newest and most promising addition to this is cryptocurrency.

2. High Security

Cryptocurrency is secured by cryptography(a secured and confidential system of keeping records). This makes it impossible to counterfeit or double spend.

When cryptocurrency is created all confirmed transactions are stored in a public ledger. The identities of coin owners are also encrypted to ensure the legitimacy of record keeping. Cryptocurrency is decentralized—the government and bank have no control over it.

3. Void of Fraud

Cryptocurrency makes use of the BlockChain technology to secure transactions, control the creation of additional units, and verify the transfer of assets through encryption and smart contracts. This makes the entity virtually unhackable and void of fraud.

4. Low transaction cost

Because cryptocurrency transfers are peer-to-peer and require no centralized intermediaries, transaction costs are very minimal. Unlike a centralized monetary system, decentralized systems do not charge currency conversion fees.

5. Confidential transactions

 One great advantage of cryptocurrency is that every transaction is a unique exchange between both parties. The terms of the transactions may be negotiated and agreed upon in each case. Moreso, information is exchanged on a push basis.

6. Individual Ownership

In the traditional monetary system, your funds are given to a 3rd party such as banks. These financial institutions can exercise great power over your asset and can decide to infringe on your rights to your money at any time. Whereas in cryptocurrency you are in absolute control of your wallet; you are the sole owner of the corresponding private and public encryption keys that make up your cryptocurrency network identity or address.

To sum up, as cryptocurrency becomes more widely embraced, it is essential to keep a close eye on how this evolving technology develops and consider ways to fully maximize it to our advantage.