The rise of Bitcoin

What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is the world’s first open online financial network for sending/receiving payments, like Paypal or credit cards. Unlike these conventional payment systems, Bitcoin is decentralized, meaning nobody owns or controls the Bitcoin network, nobody needs permission to create new Bitcoin-based financial services and no central bank is involved.

160,000

The number of worldwide merchants accepting bitcoin payments as of August 2015. That number was 10,000 in 2012 and a mere 1,000 in 2011.

CAD $1,499

The approximate cost of one bitcoin in February.

CAD $100,000

The total value of bitcoin transactions handled by a bitcoin ATM in Vancouver during its first eight days.

12.5 BTC

The number of bitcoin currency issued to bitcoin “miners” per block (every 10 minutes) of bitcoin transactions “mined” through state-of-the-art computers connected to the Internet.

770

The number of bitcoin ATMs worldwide, having doubled in the past 18 months.

10 million

The number of bitcoin transactions per month in 2017.

18x

In 2014, bitcoin’s volatility was 18 times greater than the US dollar, seven times greater than gold and eight times greater than the S&P500.

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Copyright © 2017 Transcontinental Media G.P. This article first appeared in the March 2017 edition of Canadian Insurance Top Broker magazine

This story was originally published by Canadian Insurance Top Broker.