Bitcoin has drawn many naysayers since it hit us years ago. Some call it an online scam, while others call it fake money. This coin was created in January 2009 by the mysterious ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’, and unlike central bank-backed currencies, bitcoin is operated in a decentralized environment. The value of one bitcoin was zero when it was first introduced in 2009 and when it first started trading it was valued at USD 0.0008 to USD 0.08 in July 2010. Today, it is more than USD 57,000.
Bitcoin has gone past the getting-to-know stage and right now far more people know about bitcoin. It is often described as a cryptocurrency, a virtual currency, a digital currency, or a store of value. Depending on where you are located, you may see shops accepting cryptocurrency. With online payment service giant PayPal allowing its customers to buy and sell bitcoin, this will truly open up to more usage.
PayPal is not the only publicly traded company that is the king of cryptocurrencies. Many others have adopted bitcoin as a form of reserve asset and hold direct control over their bitcoin funds.
The top six public companies with the biggest bitcoin portfolios are MicroStrategy Inc (91,579), Tesla Inc (43,200), Square Inc (8,027), Marathon Digital Holdings (5,263), Coinbase Global Inc (4,487), and Galaxy Digital Holdings (4,000). This adds to a total value of USD 9.05 trillion (BTC: USD 57,810).
This story is from the June 2021 edition of DataQuest.
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This story is from the June 2021 edition of DataQuest.
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