What is Bitcoin

According to Wikipedia, Bitcoin is both a cryptocurrency and an electronic payment system invented by an unidentified programmer, or group of programmers, under the name of Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin was introduced on 31 October 2008 to a cryptography mailing list, and released as open-source software in 2009. The identity of Nakamoto remains unknown, though many have claimed to know it. The system is peer-to-peer, and transactions take place between users directly, without an intermediary. These transactions are verified by network nodes and recorded in a public distributed ledger called the blockchain, which uses bitcoin as its unit of account. Since the system works without a central repository or single administrator, the U.S. Treasury categorizes bitcoin as a decentralized virtual currency. Bitcoin is often called the first cryptocurrency, although prior systems existed and it is more correctly described as the first decentralized digital currency. Bitcoin is the largest of its kind in terms of total market value.
Bitcoins are created as a reward in a competition in which users offer their computing power to verify and record bitcoin transactions into the blockchain. This activity is referred to as mining and successful miners are rewarded with transaction fees and newly created bitcoins. Besides being obtained by mining, bitcoins can be exchanged for other currencies, products, and services. When sending bitcoins, users can pay an optional transaction fee to the miners. This may expedite the transaction being confirmed.
As of February 2015, over 100,000 merchants and vendors accept bitcoin as payment. Instead of a 2–3% fee typically imposed by credit card processors, merchants accepting bitcoins often pay fees of 0% to less than 2% of the total purchase. Despite the fourfold increase in the number of merchants accepting bitcoin in 2014, the cryptocurrency did not have much momentum in retail transactions. The European Banking Authority and other sources have warned that bitcoin users are not protected by refund rights or chargebacks.
According to a research produced by Cambridge University in 2017, there are between 2.9 million and 5.8 million unique users actively using a cryptocurrency wallet, most of them using bitcoin. The number of active users has grown significantly since 2013 (there were 0.3 to 1.3 million unique users at the time).
The use of bitcoin by criminals has attracted the attention of financial regulators, legislative bodies, law enforcement, and media. Criminal activities are primarily focused on darknet markets and theft, though officials in countries such as the United States also recognize that bitcoin can provide legitimate financial services.
HISTORY:
Bitcoin was created by Satoshi Nakamoto,who published the invention on 31 October 2008 to a cryptography mailing list in a research paper called "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System". It was implemented as open source code and released in January 2009. Bitcoin is often called the first cryptocurrency although prior systems existed Bitcoin is more correctly described as the first decentralized digital currency
One of the first supporters, adopters, contributor to bitcoin and receiver of the first bitcoin transaction was programmer Hal Finney. Finney downloaded the bitcoin software the day it was released, and received 10 bitcoins from Nakamoto in the world's first bitcoin transaction.Other early supporters were Wei Dai, creator of bitcoin predecessor b-money, and Nick Szabo, creator of bitcoin predecessor bit gold.In the early days, Nakamoto is estimated to have mined 1 million bitcoins. Before disappearing from any involvement in bitcoin, Nakamoto in a sense handed over the reins to developer Gavin Andresen, who then became the bitcoin lead developer at the Bitcoin Foundation, the 'anarchic' bitcoin community's closest thing to an official public face.
Based on bitcoin's open source code, other cryptocurrencies started to emerge in 2011.
In March 2013, a technical glitch caused a fork in the blockchain, with one half of the network adding blocks to one version of the chain and the other half adding to another. For six hours two bitcoin networks operated at the same time, each with its own version of the transaction history. The core developers called for a temporary halt to transactions, sparking a sharp sell-off. Normal operation was restored when the majority of the network downgraded to version 0.7 of the bitcoin software. In 2013 some mainstream websites began accepting bitcoins. WordPress had started in November 2012, followed by OKCupid in April 2013, TigerDirect and Overstock.com in January 2014, Expedia in June 2014, Newegg and Dell in July 2014, and Microsoft in December 2014. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit group, started accepting bitcoins in January 2011, stopped accepting them in June 2011, and began again in May 2013.
In May 2013, the Department of Homeland Security seized assets belonging to the Mt. Gox exchange. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) shut down the Silk Road website in October 2013.
In October 2013, Chinese internet giant Baidu had allowed clients of website security services to pay with bitcoins. During November 2013, the China-based bitcoin exchange BTC China overtook the Japan-based Mt. Gox and the Europe-based Bitstamp to become the largest bitcoin trading exchange by trade volume. On 19 November 2013, the value of a bitcoin on the Mt. Gox exchange soared to a peak of US$900 after a United States Senate committee hearing was told by the FBI that virtual currencies are a legitimate financial service. On the same day, one bitcoin traded for over RMB¥6780 (US$1,100) in China. On 5 December 2013, the People's Bank of China prohibited Chinese financial institutions from using bitcoins. After the announcement, the value of bitcoins dropped, and Baidu no longer accepted bitcoins for certain services. Buying real-world goods with any virtual currency has been illegal in China since at least 2009.
The first bitcoin ATM was installed in October 2013 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
With about 12 million existing bitcoins in November 2013, the new price increased the market cap for bitcoin to at least US$7.2 billion. By 23 November 2013, the total market capitalization of bitcoin exceeded US$10 billion for the first time.
In the U.S., two men were arrested in January 2014 on charges of money-laundering using bitcoins; one was Charlie Shrem, the head of now defunct bitcoin exchange BitInstant and a vice chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation. Shrem allegedly allowed the other arrested party to purchase large quantities of bitcoins for use on black-market websites.
In early February 2014, one of the largest bitcoin exchanges, Mt. Gox, suspended withdrawals citing technical issues. By the end of the month, Mt. Gox had filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan amid reports that 744,000 bitcoins had been stolen. Months before the filing, the popularity of Mt. Gox had waned as users experienced difficulties withdrawing funds.
On 18 June 2014, it was announced that bitcoin payment service provider BitPay would become the new sponsor of St. Petersburg Bowl under a two-year deal, renamed the Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl. Bitcoin was to be accepted for ticket and concession sales at the game as part of the sponsorship, and the sponsorship itself was also paid for using bitcoin.
Less than one year after the collapse of Mt. Gox, United Kingdom-based exchange Bitstamp announced that their exchange would be taken offline while they investigate a hack which resulted in about 19,000 bitcoins (equivalent to roughly US$5 million at that time) being stolen from their hot wallet. The exchange remained offline for several days amid speculation that customers had lost their funds. Bitstamp resumed trading on 9 January after increasing security measures and assuring customers that their account balances would not be impacted.
The bitcoin exchange service Coinbase launched the first regulated bitcoin exchange in 25 US states on 26 January 2015. At the time of the announcement, CEO Brian Armstrong stated that Coinbase intends to expand to thirty countries by the end of 2015. A spokesperson for Benjamin M. Lawsky, the superintendent of New York state's Department of Financial Services, stated that Coinbase is operating without a license in the state of New York. Lawsky is responsible for the development of the so-called 'BitLicense', which companies need to acquire in order to legally operate in New York.
In August 2015 Barclays announced that they would become the first UK high street bank to start accepting bitcoin, with a plan to facilitate users to make charitable donations using the cryptocurrency outside their systems. They partnered in April 2016 with mobile payment startup Circle Internet Financial.
A major bitcoin exchange, Bitfinex, was hacked and nearly 120,000 BTC (around $60m) was stolen in 2016.^[139]
On 2 March 2017 the price of 1 bitcoin surpassed the spot price of an ounce of gold for the first time.


EXPLANATION OF BITCOIN IN SIMPLE LANGUAGE 

What is BITCOIN?_

Bitcoin is a digital currency (also called crypto-currency) created and held electronically. It is not backed by any country's central bank or government. Bitcoins can be traded for goods or services with vendors who accept Bitcoins as payment all over the world.

Bitcoins aren't printed, like dollars, euros or naira – they're created by Bitcoin miners through complex processes and you can sell it anywhere in the world and get the equivalent amount in your local currency just like you sell dollars to the 'bureau de change' and get the equivalent amount in naira or other currencies.

Bitcoin is to money what internet is to communication and the next world of money is the BITCOIN (feel free to do your research on this).

You see, Bitcoin meets all the properties of a legal tender because of its;

1. Durability; It can't decay or get spoilt

2. Divisibility; It can be divided into 1/100,000,000 which is 0.000000001 which is known as 1 satoshi. 100,000,000 Satoshi = 1 ฿itcoins

3. Portability; It is a transaction that can be done with phone, bitcoin ATMs, Internet.

4. Acceptability; A number of site online accept it and the world as a whole has accepted it. e.g: http://www.ebay.com/gds/100-Companies-That-Accept-Bitcoins-As-Payment-/10000000206483242/g.html

5. Limited supply and about 15,300,000 bitcoin alone are in existence (though more btc are being created daily) and it is known that in 114years there would be no more production of bitcoin. Presently it is created in satoshis daily.

6. Uniformity; bitcoin carry the same value all over the globe.         

In 2013 a man threw his Hard-Drive containing 7,500 btc in the bin and in 2014 when he saw the value he went and scaterd the refuses disposal site but never found it and bitcoins grows in value over time.

BITCOIN is MONEY

In 2009, 5,000btc = 27USD

In 2016, 5,000btc = 3,190,000 USD

See the huge increase in value in a space of 7 years.

Isn't that amazing?

Also In 2010, a man paid 10,000btc for 2 pizzas. In 2013, that same amount of bitcoins is worth millions of dollars.

It doesnt end there another bought bitcoin of $27 dollars back in 2009 and when the prize of bitcoin increased he sold those same bitcoin for over $870,000 needless to say he bought himself a luxury apartment.

According to Statistics within the next 5years only 0.03% of the world (1,250,000 people) is estimated to hold at least 1 bitcoin. And only 24% of people knows what a bitcoin is. But i'll show you how to be among the 24% that will earn over 1bitcoins per month.

Fellow millionaires, with the info i just shared with you, it is safe to say you are now an elite member of the society.

Currently:

Kindly note that the Bitcoin Values keeps changing daily due to it's level of popularity

1bitcoin => over $1,000 precisely $1236 as at 22/04/2017

Confirm from this link

https://goo.gl/8CwekC

1Bitcoin = Over N500,000

4Bitcoins = Over N2,000,000

So imagine having 2 to 5 to 10 to 50 to 100 bitcoins on a monthly basis. What difference would that make in your life?

Facts You Need To Know

Do you know that bitcoin is the highest valued currency in the world today?

It's value is higher than Dollars, Naira, Pounds, Euros, Ghana CEDI's, Yern, etc

Do you know that 1bitcoins is currently equivalent to over $1,200 (Over N540,000 naira)

Do you know that the richest men in the world had already invested in bitcoins E.g Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Donald Trump, e.t.c (go and do your research)

Do you also know that by the end of 2017 1bitcoins will be equivalent to over $2,000 (N1,000,000)?

Do you know that the biggest favor you can do for yourself and your family is to start acquiring bitcoins for yourself now?

I'll show you the simplest way to accumulate well as much bitcoins as possible before the ending of this year so Pay attention.

So how do we get Bitcoins?

1. You can get bitcoins by buying from Dealers called "exchangers" and saving it till it appreciates (This is a very slow process to accumulate btc because of the cost of purchasing btc).

2. You can get bitcoin by investing in the actual mining process(creating bitcoins). (very stressful, Very expensive, slow and time consuming)

3. You can also get bitcoins by working online and getting paid in bitcoins (this can be very rear).

4. You can get bitcoins by playing games online, clicking on ads etc you will be paid a few satoshis. (you'll have to play a game for over 700,000 times to get 1bitcoins and that's like a real waste of time and Mega-bites in my opinion)

 You see my friends, We've found a way for everyone here to get full access to as many Bitcoins as possible and i'll be filling you in with the way forward right now. Just Click on How to become a Bitcoin Multi Millionaire.