First, what is market cap or market capitalization and why is it important? It is the value of something, similar to net worth or what you own minus what you owe. If you're still confused then imagine if somebody owned all of the XYZ coin and sold it at the market price and paid off the coin's debt if any. That is the market cap. The true market value of something.

Name: Bitcoin
Type: Ledger, Digital Cash
Symbol: BTC, XBT
Markets: All
Founded: 1/3/2009
Founder: Unknown (Satoshi Nakamoto)
Foundation: Bitcoin Foundation
Location: Washington DC
Key People: Hal Finney, Nick Szabo
Market Cap: $57b
Price: $3460.52
Mining: POW

As a cryptocurrency enthusiast, I spend way too much time studying and researching the 1000+ "currencies" that pop up on coinmarketcap.com. I have found some unbelievable gems and of course some dogs. This is my attempt to share my research, thoughts, and recommendations. This will culminate way down the list somewhere in the 100-200 range with a little known currency that I mine personally which is making me a solid 64% compounding APR. I of course will not tell you about it now, until I make it to that part or it continues up, because I stare at it everyday wondering how the #$%@ I found it among the ocean of garbage. Hopefully, by then I will be retired and can say I told you so instead of you staring at me like I've lost my mind which is what my wife does everytime I talk about this "other" crypto. Enough with the preamble and on to the list starting with the very well known and often discussed, father of all crypto Bitcoin.

What is Bitcoin?

It is the first cryptocurrency to use blockchain technology which in simple terms is an expanding set of encryption. This provides trust that Bitcoin cannot be hacked. Here's a portion of video from superdeluxe explaining it with spam (Busce-meat) thanks to my cousin for getting this stuck in my head.

• It should be treated like cash as in, it can be stolen from your wallet or the bank (market) but it cannot be counterfeited and yes it can be used for nefarious purposes
• All transactions are public and can be viewed with any web browser
• It is controlled by science and not by some central authority

Who Invented Bitcoin?

It was created by Satoshi Nakamoto which is probably an alias and a complete and kickass mystery. There are many theories about who this is/was but no matter what you've read the identity will probably never come out because the person or persons knew what they were creating and the powerful forces that would be against them. They stepped away from the project and handed the keys to Nick Szabo. Also, Hal Finney received the first transaction from Satoshi and was very involved in the early development of bitcoin. Satoshi holds millions of bitcoin which is a concern but if they ever move then his identity will be known so it is a small concern IMO

Where is it Used?

Worldwide. The US AG a few years ago basically said we can't stop it. The clearest and easiest real world example of use to me is its ability to be used by migrant workers who, in the US, use Western Union, and with bitcoin they can send funds instantly back home for low fees and no middleman. Anybody can use bitcoin to buy virtually anything from anywhere. It is truly a global currency. I'm just glad it got decentralized before the banksters could get their grubby hands on it or come up with one of their own.

When was it Created?

The first blocks were mined right after the new year in 2009 making it the oldest, most secure, and most trusted crypto available.

The first real transaction was for a pizza from Papa Johns for 10,000 BTC which makes that pizza worth about $34mil today. Another early miner offered 50,000 BTC for $50 but no takers. I first thought about it back when it was a little over $200 but thought it was overpriced and I missed the boat. After it spiked over $1k and came back down I knew I would not miss the next wave. As you will see from future articles on other coins, it is so much more than digital money. Blockchain is the next evolution of the internet. Don't be that guy that had a chance to invest in Google but thought the internet was just a phase.

Why should I buy it?

I'm using the 👍 as a scale on how I feel about a certain crypto. I give BTC a 4 out of 5 because although it is the original, I'm not convinced it will remain on top (think myspace for social media and 3com for NICs). We are still in the adoption phase on crypto and I am floored every time I ask if a person has heard of Bitcoin and still hear "No" which is more than yes believe it or not.

Think of Bitcoin as gold or bonds from an investment standpoint. Also, use it to convert other currencies like STEEM into something solid to hold onto. It's not going anywhere and in fact it has a hard cap of 21m coins (78% of which is already mined) so it will become more rare as we march toward that cap. Some people honestly believe that 1 BTC will be worth $1m USD someday. I'm still on the fence with that but yes I do believe it will be a LOT higher than it is today. Everytime a country or big business says yeah we're in, bitcoin spikes.

If you are not a cryptocurrency beginner then there are better things to invest in but it takes serious time and research to figure it out. Read my future posts on #coinmarketcap and you will see higher ratings for things like Ethereum, Golem, and my secret weapon to be revealed much much later.

How do I get it?

First you will need a wallet.

1. I suggest you get one on your phone like copay or coinbase. Here's one of mine
   No danger of putting that out there as again it is public. The secret is in the private key which allows you to access the wallet. As long as you have that key you can access your wallet, forever!
2. Use old style government paper (cash) to buy bitcoin from an exchange like a bitcoin atm https://coinatmradar.com/ or coinbase has a built in exchange and you can transfer cash from your bank account or credit card.
3. Once you have some it's easy to make more but spread it around to different wallets to minimize your risk.

And finally my favorite way to get any crypto is to mine it!

But not bitcoin lol! Bitcoin is mined by having your computer solve complex problems therefore verifying transactions on the blockchain in exchange for fees and a chance at a block reward which is currently 12 BTC. This is called proof of work or (POW). Sounds easy enough to have your PC earn $40,800 plus fees every 10 mins right? It was that easy in the beginning. Mining BTC has been an arms race as the complexity increases and now is done in massive Chinese farming operations.

It was first done with regular old computer CPUs but soon the electricity cost outweighed the prize so it moved to GPUs (high powered video game graphic cards) and then came the ASIC... I could go on and on but you basically can't mine bitcoin profitably now unless you have some serious gear including cooling equipment and belong to a mining pool or pay for cloud mining aka ponzi scheme

http://www.bitcoinblockhalf.com/

ANSWER: Buy it and hold or mine an alt coin and convert it to bitcoin.

That's all for Bitcoin the #1 cryptocurrency in the world. It was kind of a dry run for the rest so let me know what you think and as always if you like it...

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