If you bought just $1,000 of bitcoins in July 2010, you would now have 90 million dollars on your hands. From a mere five cents a pop seven years ago the cryptocurrency has steadily been climbing in value. What are the reasons for the ever-growing value of Bitcoin can be many, but one reason could be the recent upgrades to the system. Transactions are faster, and fees are lower now. Another reason might simply be that more people know about it and are comfortable with the idea of a cryptocurrency, including investors. As more mainstream traders and investors get on board, the currency is seen as increasingly robust. However, click here to get more information about the trading software .

For those who don’t know, bitcoin is a virtual currency created by a mysterious individual who goes by the name, Satoshi Nakamoto. Though it is most probably not his actual name, and nobody knows who he is till date. Nakamoto introduced his idea for the cryptocurrency in a research paper in 2008, and it was implemented in 2009 as open-source code. His reason for creating Bitcoin came down to the flaws he saw in the current system, debasing the currency, a lack of privacy and security, bank’s predatory lending practices, and the difficulties and expenses with transferring money.

Bitcoin is not actually a coin but a line of unique code, and like the dollar bill today, Bitcoin has value – because people give it value. Like gold, there’s a fixed amount of Bitcoin that can exist in the world, which is 21 million. Bitcoins runs on the blockchain, a digital ledger that keeps track of every single transaction made in the Bitcoin network, making it exceptionally secure because everything is public and everything is tracked. It’s the world’s first open Financial Network. As people become increasingly wary of government’s control over individual assets, Bitcoin becomes more and more viable – your own personal bank that no one can touch. Your Bitcoin is stored in a wallet. This wallet can be a digital wallet or even a physical one, which can be accessed by your unique key that is a long string of numbers. The key is yours, and yours only, and you should keep it in a private and secure place.

If you’re looking to invest in Bitcoin, you can do so in three different ways. Number one, you can mine your own, which is very difficult as competitions for mining bitcoins has increased. Only those with powerful computers and cash to shell out for energy costs can keep up with processing the increasingly tricky calculations. Number two, buy some bitcoin from an online exchange. And number three, you can purchase shares in a fund that invests in Bitcoin. If you’re looking to cash out, you can do so by selling your Bitcoin directly to another user in exchange for another currency or in an online exchange.

Bitcoin’s real-world value may be slower to develop. As a day-to-day currency, it’s still hard to use. While there are some brick-and-mortar establishments that accept the cryptocurrency, from hotel chains to certain restaurants, it’s still challenging to use that in the real world. In online, certain goods and services can be bought with the bitcoin, as more companies and retailers begin to recognize bitcoin’s growth.