What Are the Advantages of Paying with Bitcoin?
When it was launched, Bitcoin (BTCUSD) was envisaged as a medium for daily transactions by its inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto. The idea behind a decentralized cryptocurrency was to eliminate centralized control of money from government agencies and ensure speedy processing of transactions.
More than a decade later, observers are questioning whether the cryptocurrency has failed to live up to that promise. Very few daily transactions are conducted using Bitcoin as a medium of exchange.1
But the idea of an alternate currency, outside the purview of governments and federal agencies, is powerful. Recent developments in Bitcoin technology, such as Lightning Network, have the potential to return Bitcoin to its original promise. The number of places accepting Bitcoin has increased as the cryptocurrency’s technology and name recognition have evolved. You can buy a surprising number of things using Bitcoin.2
Bitcoin is designed to offer users a unique set of advantages over other payment methods. We’ll take a closer look at those below, but before we do, it is useful to explore what Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency, actually is. By understanding Bitcoin’s design principles, it will be easier to see the advantages of using Bitcoin for payments.
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Bitcoin is a decentralized, peer-to-peer cryptocurrency system that processes transactions through digital units of exchange called bitcoin. It was invented in 2009, and the Bitcoin network has come to dominate and even define the cryptocurrency space, spawning a legion of altcoin followers and representing for some users an alternative to government flat currencies like the U.S. dollar or the euro, or pure commodity currencies like gold or silver coins.3
Part of the reason for Bitcoin’s attraction to these followers is its decentralized status: It is not controlled or regulated by a central authority. This immediately distinguishes it from fiat currencies, which are issued by central banks and backed by the government. Fiat currencies are also disbursed into a given economy through institutions like banks that are beholden to government regulations for their operations.
On the other hand, Bitcoin creation and disbursal does not depend on government fiat. Payments involving Bitcoin are processed through a private network of computers linked through a shared ledger. Each transaction is simultaneously recorded in a “blockchain” on each computer that updates and informs all accounts. The blockchain serves as a distributed ledger and obviates the need for any central authority to maintain such records.
Bitcoins are not issued by a central bank or government system like fiat currencies are. Rather, bitcoins are either “mined” by a computer through a process of solving mathematical problems or algorithms are used to verify transaction blocks to be added to the blockchain. Bitcoin can also be purchased with standard national money currencies and placed into a bitcoin wallet that is accessed most commonly through a smartphone or computer.
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