All you need to know about Bitcoin and other Crypto investments.

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Bitcoin (BTC) price history up until September 17, 2021

What was the lowest price of bitcoin ever?

The value of one Bitcoin was $0 when it was first introduced in 2009.

What is the price of 1 bitcoin as of today, September 17th, 2021?

Today’s value for 1 Bitcoin  is 47,544.60 US Dollar. ( 34,94,630.32 Indian Rupee )

Bitcoin (BTC) was worth over 60,000 USD in both February 2021 as well as April 2021 due to events involving Tesla and Coinbase, respectively. Tesla’s announcement that it had acquired 1.5 billion U.S. dollars’ worth of the digital coin as well as the IPO of the U.S.’ biggest crypto exchange fueled mass interest. The world’s most well-known cryptocurrency, however, suffered a notable correction in April after speculation on government regulation. Another reason, according to experts, was an electricity blackout in the Xinjiang region in China. This unexpected development led to a decline in the Bitcoin hashrate – how many Bitcoins are being mined – and potentially spooked investors into selling their assets. According to a 2020 research based off IP addresses from so-called hashers that used certain Bitcoin mining pools, more than half of all the Bitcoin mining occurred in China.

Is the world running out of Bitcoin?

Unlike fiat currency like the U.S. dollar – as the Federal Reserve can simply decide to print more banknotes – Bitcoin’s supply is finite: BTC has a maximum supply embedded in its design, of which roughly 89 percent had been reached in April 2021. It is believed that Bitcoin will run out by 2040, despite more powerful mining equipment. This is because mining becomes exponentially more difficult and power-hungry every four years, a part of Bitcoin’s original design. Because of this, a Bitcoin mining transaction could equal the energy consumption of a small country in 2021.

Bitcoin’s price outlook: a potential bubble?

Cryptocurrencies have few metrices available that allow for forecasting, if only because it is rumored that only few cryptocurrency holders own a large portion of available supply. These large holders – referred to as “whales” – are said to make up of two percent of anonymous ownership accounts, whilst owning roughly 92 percent of BTC. On top of this, most people who use cryptocurrency-related services worldwide are retail clients rather than institutional investors. This means outlooks on whether Bitcoin prices will fall or grow are difficult to measure, as movements from one large whale already having a significant impact on this market.

How Does Bitcoin Mining Work?

Bitcoin mining is the process by which new bitcoins are entered into circulation, but it is also a critical component of the maintenance and development of the blockchain ledger. It is performed using very sophisticated computers that solve extremely complex computational math problems.

Cryptocurrency mining is painstaking, costly, and only sporadically rewarding. Nonetheless, mining has a magnetic appeal for many investors interested in cryptocurrency because of the fact that miners are rewarded for their work with crypto tokens. This may be because entrepreneurial types see mining as pennies from heaven, like California gold prospectors in 1849. And if you are technologically inclined, why not do it?

However, before you invest the time and equipment, read this explainer to see whether mining is really for you. We will focus primarily on Bitcoin (throughout, we’ll use “Bitcoin” when referring to the network or the cryptocurrency as a concept, and “bitcoin” when we’re referring to a quantity of individual tokens).

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  1. By mining, you can earn cryptocurrency without having to put down money for it.

2. Bitcoin miners receive Bitcoin as a reward for completing “blocks” of verified transactions, which are added to the blockchain.

3. Mining rewards are paid to the miner who discovers a solution to a complex hashing puzzle first, and the probability that a participant will be the one to discover the solution is related to the portion of the total mining power on the network.

4. You need either a GPU (graphics processing unit) or an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) in order to       set up a mining rig.

How to Mine Bitcoins

Miners are getting paid for their work as auditors. They are doing the work of verifying the legitimacy of Bitcoin transactions. This convention is meant to keep Bitcoin users honest and was conceived by Bitcoin’s founder, Satoshi Nakamoto. By verifying transactions, miners are helping to prevent the “double-spending problem.”

Double spending is a scenario in which a Bitcoin owner illicitly spends the same bitcoin twice. With physical currency, this isn’t an issue: once you hand someone a $20 bill to buy a bottle of vodka, you no longer have it, so there’s no danger you could use that same $20 bill to buy lotto tickets next door. While there is the possibility of counterfeit cash being made, it is not exactly the same as literally spending the same dollar twice. With digital currency, however, as the Investopedia dictionary explains, “there is a risk that the holder could make a copy of the digital token and send it to a merchant or another party while retaining the original.”

Let’s say you had one legitimate $20 bill and one counterfeit of that same $20. If you were to try to spend both the real bill and the fake one, someone that took the trouble of looking at both of the bills’ serial numbers would see that they were the same number, and thus one of them had to be false. What a Bitcoin miner does is analogous to that—they check transactions to make sure that users have not illegitimately tried to spend the same bitcoin twice.

“So after all that work of verifying transactions, I might still not get any bitcoin for it?”

That is correct. To earn bitcoins, you need to meet two conditions. One is a matter of effort; one is a matter of luck:

You have to verify ~1MB worth of transactions. This is the easy part.
You have to be the first miner to arrive at the right answer, or closest answer, to a numeric problem. This process is also known as proof of work.

“What do you mean, ‘the right answer to a numeric problem’?”

The good news: No advanced math or computation is involved. You may have heard that miners are solving difficult mathematical problems—that’s not exactly true. What they’re actually doing is trying to be the first miner to come up with a 64-digit hexadecimal number (a “hash”) that is less than or equal to the target hash. It’s basically guesswork.

The bad news: It’s guesswork, but with the total number of possible guesses for each of these problems being on the order of trillions, it’s incredibly arduous work. In order to solve a problem first, miners need a lot of computing power. To mine successfully, you need to have a high “hash rate,” which is measured in terms of megahashes per second (MH/s), gigahashes per second (GH/s), and terahashes per second (TH/s).

How Much a Miner Earns

The rewards for Bitcoin mining are reduced by half every four years. When bitcoin was first mined in 2009, mining one block would earn you 50 BTC. In 2012, this was halved to 25 BTC. By 2016, this was halved again to 12.5 BTC. On May 11, 2020, the reward halved again to 6.25 BTC. In November of 2020, the price of Bitcoin was about $17,900 per bitcoin, which means you’d earn $111,875 (6.25 x 17,900) for completing a block. Not a bad incentive to solve that complex hash problem detailed above, it might seem.

Some more interesting facts about Bitcoin:

About 18.78 million Bitcoins have been mined so far, meaning 83 percent of all the Bitcoin that will ever come into existence have already been brought into circulation. This leaves a little over 2 million Bitcoins to be mined.

The average time to mine a bitcoin block is 10 minutes. A new block generates new bitcoins (at the present time). So the time to mine 1 bitcoin would be 10 minutes (on average). How Much Bitcoin Can You Mine in a Day? With each bitcoin block taking 10 minutes to mine, 144 blocks are mined each day. This means that at the current rate following the latest bitcoin halving, 900 BTC is available in rewards every day.

How many Bitcoins are left to mine 2021?

How many bitcoins are in circulation in 2021? By February 2021, the number of bitcoins in circulation stood at 18.638 million. So the number left to mine is 2.362 million. On average, the blocks created will keep ‘halving’ every four years, until eventually only 0.000000001 Bitcoin are awarded per block ‘mined’ by the year 2140.

The Bitmain AntMiner, widely touted as the most efficient and most powerful Bitcoin miner on the market, offers miners a highly impressive hash rate of 14 TH/s at a surprisingly low power draw. The high hash power of the S9 is delivered by a trio of boards, which feature 189 ships between them.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he owns Bitcoin, Dogecoin and Ethereum. Musk added that Tesla and SpaceX also own Bitcoin. Musk was speaking at the Bitcoin event “The B Word”, along with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood. Mr. Musk said that with his personal holding in bitcoin, he is financially affected when the price drops. “I might pump, but I don’t dump,” he said on a panel about bitcoin. “I definitely do not believe in getting the price high and selling or anything like that.”

Can bitcoin be stolen?

Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that uses cryptography to secure transactions. … Hackers can steal bitcoins by gaining access to bitcoin owners’ digital wallets.

Most Bitcoin mining occurred in China, according to IP addresses from so-called hashers that used certain Bitcoin mining pools in 2021.

Who owns the most bitcoin?

Satoshi Nakamoto

Unsurprisingly, Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, is at the top of the list and is estimated to own about 1 million bitcoins which translates to about $34.9 billion in 2021. Satoshi Nakamoto is a pseudonym for the person (or people) who created Bitcoin and wrote its white paper.

Why Bitcoin is so expensive?

We can compare Bitcoin, and cryptocurrency in general, with fiat currency on the basis of these and other factors. Bitcoin is limited in nature, while all other fiat currencies are produced by the government periodically. This means Bitcoin has an increased scarcity and hence is of high value.

Why do hackers use bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a digital currency that can be transferred from one person to another without the use of a bank. Because it’s unsecured it could easily be lost or stolen and is not insured by any government bodies. … Hackers like to use bitcoin because of its anonymity.

What happens if I lose my bitcoin?

The Bitcoins never disappear, but if you lose your wallet, then you lack the keys necessary to actually use those Bitcoins. So although the coins do not disappear, they are effectively removed from the economy since you cannot spend them. This is why it is important to backup your wallet.

Is Bitcoin legal?

So, Bitcoin and cryptocurrency trading are now legal, but initial coin offerings and asset funds are still illegal.

Is Bitcoin Legal in India?

As previously stated, Bitcoin is legal in India, which means you can buy and sell it and hold it as an investment, but there is no governing body to look after or protect it.

They are not issued by the central bank of the country (in our case, the Reserve Bank Of India) as legal tender. Neither are they recognised by the Government as legal tender nor are they regulated by the RBI. There are no laws that prohibit (or allow) trading in crypto. So, Bitcoin and cryptocurrency trading are now legal, but initial coin offerings and asset funds are still illegal.

Also, the Supreme Court, by setting aside the 2018 Reserve Bank of India (RBI) ban on crypto trading in the country, has provided some sort of legitimacy to it. Given this background and the interest these coins have generated to invest in this emerging class of assets.

Is Bitcoin taxable in India?

Bitcoins created by mining are self-generated capital assets. … Hence, no capital gains tax would arise on the mining of bitcoins. This position would hold till such time the government thinks of coming up with an amendment to Section 55 of the Act.

Who has most Bitcoin in India?

Nischal Shetty has made a name for himself in India. In the first half of 2021 alone, his crypto business has grown more than 12 times to become the country’s largest digital currency exchange. And now, he’s set his sights on making WazirX India’s first billion-dollar crypto unicorn.

Is it OK to invest in bitcoin?

No investment is without risk, but investing in bitcoin carries different risks and responsibilities compared to traditional investments of stocks, bonds and funds. And the bitcoin investor plays a big role in keeping their bitcoin safe.

Can the government take your bitcoin?

Bitcoin can also be taken by the government through a process called forfeiture. Forfeiture is the permanent loss of that bitcoin by way of court order or judgment. Seizure may occur before forfeiture and not all seizures will result in forfeiture.

Can I invest 1000 RS in Bitcoin?

What is the price of one Bitcoin? … You can buy a fraction of a Bitcoin. For instance, you can buy Bitcoin for Rs 100 or Rs 1,000.

Crypto in India is currently booming, the market has been thriving, and retail investors are adding to the fire with their enthusiasm. India has been estimated to have over 10M + crypto investors, and this number is snowballing every day.

While a significant number of Indians are wholeheartedly affirming cryptocurrencies, one piece of misinformation is holding back many more millions. People confuse the unregulated aspect of cryptocurrencies with being illegal. However, the Indian government is exploring crypto regulation. Meanwhile, crypto exchanges like CoinSwitch Kuber have been key in supporting the government and helping investors join the bandwagon by self-regulating and obliging a thorough KYC check for all their investors.

In 2018, The Finance Ministry released a statement saying:

“ The Government does not consider Cryptocurrencies “as Legal Tender or Coin” and will take all measures to eliminate the use of these Crypto Assets in Financing “Illegitimate Activities” or a Part of the Payment System The Government will explore the use of Blockchain technology proactively for assuring in Digital Economy.”

The above statement from the Finance Minister was followed by a circular from RBI. It suggested all entities governed by them stop offering any kind of service to entities associated with virtual currencies.

Government’s take on cryptocurrencies

Fast forward to 2020, the advancements that the crypto regulated countries like the U.S, Singapore, etc. were experiencing moved Indian authorities to rethink their decision.

This resulted in the Supreme Court of India retracting the RBI’s circular issued in 2018, leading to banks like HDFC Bank, Yes Bank, ICICI Bank, and the State Bank of India resuming their transactions with cryptocurrency exchanges.

A couple of months into this, India was already riding the crypto wave. We re-entered the market at a time when the equity markets were touching new lower levels every day, and cryptocurrencies were rallying one after the other.

It did not take long for cryptocurrencies to make a place for themselves in the investment landscape. Observing the boost in the adoption of cryptocurrencies, the government announced introducing a new bill concerning crypto.

Even before the bill was presented, people speculated that it was unfavourable towards cryptocurrencies. But Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, cleared the air and said:

“From our side, we are very clear that we are not shutting all options. We will allow certain windows for people to do experiments on the blockchain, bitcoins or cryptocurrency.”

She acknowledged that blockchain is a vast area, and growth of fintech depends on such experiments. She also said that India has an advantage in it.

“A lot of fintech companies have made a lot of progress on it. We have got several presentations. Much work at the state level is happening, and we want to take it in a big way in IFSC or Gift City in Gandhinagar,” she said.

The Finance Ministry is planning to spend more time on this and soon develop a set of guidelines for cryptocurrencies.

The bottom line

Countries that have regulated cryptocurrencies also went through similar phases. At first, they found it challenging to adopt cryptocurrencies, but to avoid failing to keep up with technological innovations, they embraced them.

India, too, acknowledges that we can’t afford to not move with these advances, especially with the exponential returns of over 800% from cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Significant Indians are already sailing through cryptocurrencies, and with platforms like CoinSwitch Kuber coming into play, we can expect a surge in crypto investors in the country.

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Nishanth Muraleedharan, also known as "Nishani," is an IT engineer who transitioned into entrepreneurship, driven by a profound passion for the textile industry. As the president of Save Handloom Foundation, (SaveHandloom.org) and the Founder & CEO of DMZ International Imports & Exports Pvt Ltd., I am passionate about reviving the Indian handloom industry and empowering the weavers and artisans across the country. With 25+ years of experience in the textile industry, I have developed deep market insights and a rich network of handloom weaving societies, master weavers, and self-help groups, who exclusively make products for our trust.