I wish someone had told me to invest in bitcoin seven years ago

“I wish someone had told me” is a series of posts that feed into our inquisitive nature at CN&CO. Each week we hear from someone in our network about something interesting or surprising that’s recently happened or occurred to them – or lessons they learnt. These blogs are a way to pay it forward and form part of CN&CO’s belief that the world can be a better place – and we all have a responsibility to make it so. This week’s post is by Kurt Solomon…

Warning, reading this blog may give you serious FOMO.

If you had invested $1 000 in bitcoin in 2010, it would be worth $35 000 000 today. That’s 35 million US dollars, people! With bitcoin currently the world’s best-performing currency, is it a fad or here to stay?

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan, claims crypto currency is only fit for use by drug dealers, murderers and people living in North Korea, and says it is a fraud – The Guardian

I first started reading about bitcoin, crypto currencies and blockchain sometime last year. I never really understood how it worked or what it actually is. To be honest, I still don’t. But I do think that it is here to stay.

I bought some bitcoin in February this year. The price was around R12 000 per bitcoin. Obviously not understanding what it was all about I was reluctant to go all in, so I bought a fraction of a bitcoin for around R1 000. Literally a couple weeks later, the price went from R12 000 to R29 000 and started rising. I said I was going to wait for it to come down before I bought more. It rose even more.

In essence, it’s an encrypted string of data that’s been encoded to signify a single, specific unit of currency. Solving mathematical problems, based specifically on cryptography – or the art of writing codes – produces crypto currency. – blockchain.wtf

While writing this (mid September 2017), lots has happened in the bitcoin world. The bitcoin price was around R63 000 and has come off significantly to around R52 000 in a week. This, to my understanding, is due to China reporting a ban not only on mining bitcoin but on bitcoin exchanges too.

China plans to shut down domestic bitcoin exchanges, anonymous sources told The Wall Street Journal today – The Verge

How do I buy bitcoin?

To buy bitcoin, you need bitcoin wallet – and there are a number of wallet providers to choose from. I use a service called Luno, which allows South Africans to buy, sell and store bitcoin. You can then pay for purchases out of your bitcoin wallet, or receive funds into it.

Bitcoin could hit $100 000 in 10 years, says the analyst who correctly called its $2 000 price – cnbc.com

Bitcoin is one of those topics that evoke great emotion and debate. No banks, no fees, and no inflation. No wonder China plans to ban it.

These are a few potential perks of this thing called bitcoin. But is it really the money of the future? I think it is.