Investing in Bitcoin: Is Bitcoin a Safe Investment or a Big Gamble?

Is Bitcoin a Safe Investment

At the beginning of the year, Warren Buffet in an interview commented on the cryptocurrency market as both a fraud and the future of the world. These are two words that don’t seem to match and is keeping everyone on their feet regarding investing in the market. Since then, the market volatility and the price of the coin have been the target watch for most investors. However, investors holding back on their funds and refusing to invest in the market is due to fears of loss and no returns. Unlike other business that you can file for a court case for fraud or other means to get their money back; crypto investments are not like that, investors rarely get back their monies.

For many companies that want to invest in cryptocurrency, the lack of custodian capabilities is a drawback that is a real risk for them. There are a couple of reasons for this drawback. First, we have seen Bitcoin rise from $1 to $1000 then plummeting to $200 and then rising again. The volatility of the market is one that most investors are not willing to take the risk for. Another reason is that cryptocurrency that even though Bitcoin is regarded as money, it is an intangible element that is non-redeemable like the legal tender in current use. Digital currencies are just codes that exist in the computer world with no special security to protect it and prevent hackers from getting hold of it.

Easing the Concerns

There are steps put forward to ease the concerns and fears such as regulation, liquidity, and cyber security which are major concerns for large custodians around digital currencies. 10 years after, the development of cryptocurrency is still in the early stages and there aren’t enough custodians to handle the risk or calculate how much risk they will be faced with yet especially cyber security risks.

Investing one’s money into cryptocurrency is not necessarily a bad idea but just make sure it is money you are willing to risk because you may lose it all. At the same time, if the proper infrastructures are put in place for big custodians, the market is likely to see large transforming investments from big companies.

Bitcoin Vs Altcoins: The Battle for Supremacy

Since the day Satoshi Nakamoto released Bitcoin into our virtual space 10 years ago, everything we knew about transactions changed. We have witnessed how this particular currency has raked in hundreds of billions of dollars for people across the world and is now recognized as a payment method.

Though traditionists still nurse misgivings about cryptocurrencies in general due to its unregulated and decentralized nature, Bitcoin faces another pressing challenge.

There are over 1,200 cryptocurrencies in existence, and even though Bitcoin is quite popular amongst enthusiasts, there are a handful of altcoins are that still formidable to even out the stakes. And with the way cryptocurrencies has taken a hit by lower exchange rates, we are faced with questions:

Which currency is the most usable right now? Where do we put our money?

We’re going to be looking at this from different standpoints.

Mining.

While a handful of miners see Bitcoin mining as an adventure in minting new bitcoin, at some point they’ll come to see the process as energy draining, and time-consuming, whereas little time is spent mining most altcoins. Fact is, a novice in the mining world can mine altcoins without breaking a sweat using standard CPUs! So, more miners are in the altcoin mining business, because it is easier to mine.

We must also look at the reward for mining these coins; while the limit for mining BTC is 21 million coins, altcoins like Litecoin has a limit of 84 million coins. That’s 4 times more coins than BTC.

Transactions and speed.

While bitcoin may be the father of cryptocurrencies, it is slowly paving way for his sons: Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum amongst others. We have all noticed that Bitcoin blockchain allows only 7 transactions per second, but this is not the case with Ethereum which allows up 15 transactions and Litecoin having a potential to perform 56 transactions per second. Where do you think people will be more interested in?

Popularity

According to a recent survey done by Virtual Coin Squad, 54 major companies in the world accepts cryptocurrencies as a form of payment. Out of that number, 53 accepts payments in BTC, while 12 accepts Monero, 15 accepts Dogecoin, and 25 accepts Litecoin. There are no arguments here that Bitcoin is still popular amongst heavyweights. But we can see that altcoins are steadily gaining more acceptance as well.

In conclusion, while the cryptocurrency market is quite volatile, there are concerns as to which cryptocurrency to invest it. Bitcoin might take the lead, but investing in other popular altcoins isn’t a bad idea either, as some of these altcoins are relatively more stable and improved in blockchain transaction than BTC.

 

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