Santoshi Nakamoto kickstarts the Bitcoin craze

With the new year starting to gain momentum, everyone will be eyeing their wallets, looking to make those copper coins turn to accumulative greenbacks. The allure of Bitcoin persists and as fiat currencies become increasingly unstable, crypto-merchants will continue to punt the digital route.

3 January 2009 marks the day that Santoshi Nakamoto laid the first block, the Genesis Block, of the blockchain that makes up the digital payment system, Bitcoin. Santoshi Nakamoto is, of course, not an actual human being, but the pseudonym used by the creator or creators of the Bitcoin crypto-currency.

Bitcoin was launched as a response to the easily manipulated, possibly corrupt central banking systems used internationally. The concept of a decentralised peer-to-peer system aims to challenge the well-established banking elite. In its tenth year of existence, Bitcoin’s highest trading value was R10 908,18 which it reached in June 2019.

With opportunities scarce and finances often stretched, it is important for anyone interested in crypto-currencies to be well researched. The potential for gains exists but the foundation is still a tad unsteady as the January 2019 low of R3 441,03 can attest to. The digital revolution will come, but perhaps 2020 is a little too early.