[Review/Compare] Bitcoin. Score = +146

Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor, this is not financial advice but only provided for information purposes. Although I will do my best I cannot guarantee the accuracy of information in this document.

Invested potential conflict of interest, i.e. do I own more than a tiny amount used for testing purposes. I will attempt to be impartial regardless of whether I own the coin or not. : Yes

Currency: Bitcoin

Previous Names: N/A, although currently "Bitcoin" is sometimes called "Bitcoin Core" as a result of the "Bitcoin Cash" hard fork.

Short Summary of Intent: Peer to peer transactions, without an intermediary which at the time was not really available. Being electronic transactions could take place rapidly across international borders.

Code: BTC

Market Cap: $175,600,000,000

Market Cap Updated: 27/02/2018

Coinmarketcap.com Ranking: 1

Coinmarketcap.com Ranking Last Updated: 27/02/2018

Market Cap Score: +10

Trading Volume: $239,000,000,000

Trading Volume Last Updated: 27/02/2018

Trading Volume Score: +7

Pow/POS/Other: Proof of Work

POW algorithm if applicable: SHA256

Block Time (seconds): 600

Block Size: Originally 1mb, now theoretically up to 4mb with Segwit

Annual Inflation Rate: 4%

Date inflation rate updated: 27/02/2018

Future Inflation rate declines: Yes

Inflation Rate Score: +10

Circulating Coin Supply: 16,890,000

Date coin supply updated: 27/02/2018

Max Coin Supply (Jan 2100 if infinite): 21,000,000

Circulating Supply as a percentage of max: 80%

Score for circulating percentage: +8

Premine as a percentage of max supply: 0%

Score for premine percentage: +10

Privacy Currently: No. Bitcoins ledger is publicly viewable by anyone.

Privacy Planned: No

Privacy Method: N/A

Privacy Strength: N/A

Privacy Score: +0

Centralization: 2/5 – Bitcoin has some centralization of mining, including some geographic centralization in China. Some estimates put Chinese hashpower at 70% of the total on the Bitcoin network. This is possibly due to mining pools being based in China, using both Chinese and external hashpower. As far as I can tell most people do not believe the current level of mining centralization is a significant threat. Also miners have an incentive not to destroy attack the Bitcoin network as Bitcoin would then become worthless along with their investments in hardware.

Centralization Score: +8

Team: Bitcoin is not developed by any one company or group of people. Some of the development groups known to work on Bitcoin are Bitcoin Core, Blockstream and Chaincode Labs. Estimates on the number of full time employees working on Bitcoin vary wildly, but we know Blockstream alone employs at least 10 people and has raised over 150 million dollars.

Team Funded: No core team. Some are volunteers, I assume some do it to increase the value of their own Bitcoin holdings, and at least some members of development companies would be paid a salary.

Team Score: +10

Start Date: Genesis block 3/01/2009

Start Date Score: +6

Transactions per second: ~7

Transactions second layer or side chains currently implemented?: Yes, Lightning Network support. I cannot currently find the number of transactions per second that Lightning has achieved and I have spent over an hour looking. follow up required

Transaction Fee Average (USD): $2.50

Transaction Fee Date Updated: 27/02/2018

Transactions Score: +0

Type: Currency

Degree of completion: 4: Does virtually everything planned.

Completion last updated: 27/02/2018

Completion Score: +8

Open Source: Yes

Open Source Score: +20

Governance: Bitcoin is essentially governed by miners choosing what code to run. No one person or group has excessive control over Bitcoin as highlighted recently with Segwit and Lightning Network implementation.

Treasury System: None

Governance and Treasury score: +6

Make Sense for Blockchain: +0 It does make sense to me to have a decentralized currency.

Current Development Rate: 5: very active development

Date development rate updated: 27/02/2018

Development Rate Score: +10

Risk of security breach: – Small chance of a 51% attack. Exchanges and the like do get hacked, however, this is not a security issue with Bitcoin, but a security issue with the exchanges. The actual Bitcoin blockchain has not been hacked.

Security Score: -2

Wallet tested and working with date: Trezor hardware wallet. 27/02/2018

Wallet Comments: Reasonably easy to use and set up, and the web interface is easy to use.

Wallet Score: +5

Real World Usage (Other than investment and speculation): The coin currently sees real world usage in countries with capital controls preventing the export of capital from the country, and also in countries with failed monetary systems such as Venezuela and parts of the African continent. Although there is no way to prove it I would strongly suspect Bitcoin sees more real world transactions than any other cryptocurrency in the western world as well.

Usage Score: +10

Biggest fish in the pond?: Yes

Biggest fish score: +10

Our Brief Comments:
-Some people point to the energy consumption of Bitcoin mining and state that it is an issue and in the future it will use as much energy as a developed country. However, this is because people are choosing to mine it increasing the difficulty. The entire Bitcoin network could run on a laptop if noone else was mining.

-I am going to give Bitcoin +10 for first mover advantage, being the first ever cryptocurrency to adopt widespread support.

Comments score modifier: +10

Total Score/Rating: +146

Website: https://bitcoin.org/en/

Other social media links: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/

Biggest Exchange: https://www.bitfinex.com/

Biggest Exchange last updated: 27/02/2018

References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/
https://www.cryptocompare.com/coins/btc
https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com
https://btcmanager.com/bitcoins-hash-rate-distribution-appears-to-be-becoming-less-centralized/
https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/mining/china/
https://bitcoin.org/en/
https://blockchain.info
https://lightning.network/lightning-network-paper.pdf
https://99bitcoins.com/2017s-best-bitcoin-desktop-wallets-4-wallets-reviewed-mac-windows-linux/
https://bitcoincore.org
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockstream
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/blockstream

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