Virtual Billions

Bitcoin Begins

Bitcoin is an online “financial subsystem.” Buyers and sellers conduct their transactions over the Internet using this payment stream, an alternative to conventional exchanges in US dollars and other currencies. Bitcoins are also a popular investment. Bitcoins were introduced on January 1, 2010; by July 1, 2013 – less than four years later – the total value of all bitcoins rose to $7 billion.

Four people drove the bitcoin system’s volatile development, deployment and early success: Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin’s founder; Ross Ulbricht, whose bitcoin-powered Dark Web site Silk Road connected buyers and sellers of illegal drugs and other clandestine commodities; and Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, who won a multimillion-dollar legal settlement from Facebook and have made sizable, successful bitcoin investments. Highly publicized crimes have raised concern about the potential theft of bitcoins. But the bad publicity seems to have made the public wary, not panicky, about the bitcoin payment system.

Satoshi Nakamoto

Satoshi Nakamoto is the pseudonym of a reclusive genius with a personal net worth in excess of $250 million. This is well ...