Lets Talk About Forks

Today I want to hopefully teach you something about forks. No, I am not talking about the eating utensil you use to eat or salad, or the thing your mother yelled at you  for trying to put it in the electrical outlet when you were a kid. I'm talking about the forks of bitcoin. Bitcoin has had several forks since its creation like Super Bitcoin, Bitcoin Platinum, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Uranium, Bitcoin Gold, and many other along those premises. The two most successful one have been Bitcoin Gold and Bitcoin Cash. These are considered hard forks. It is when a single cryptocurrency splits and become two different versions. An old version and a new one. Allowing people to hold both as individual coins. Both selling at different volumes and different prices. When a cryptocurrency forks you are given the same amount of the new version to start. For example, if you had 5 Bitcoin in your wallet, after the split you would be rewarded with 5 Bitcoin Cash.

Currently the Bitcoin we all know and love so dearly is trading at around $8,000. Bitcoin Cash, the forth highest rated coin on the market is around $860. Bitcoin Gold is way below selling for just barely $50.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) split from Bitcoin (BTC) because of a disagreement on how to handle the scalability problem that they were facing for quite some time. The split came on August 1, 2017. With the split came three things that sets Bitcoin Cash apart. The first was the increase in the maximum block size to eight megabytes. Another thing that came from it was the modification of transaction signature hashing algorithms. Its added protection to the holder, and made things much simpler in terms of wallets, where bitcoin is stored. The final thing it added was the modification of the algorithm that determines a block's proof-of-work difficulty. This just made sure that all coins mined were real and not obtained unfairly.

Bitcoin Gold (BTG) was first launched on November 12th, 2017. It has a feature that protects the users for spending their coin accidentally. It is a lot easier to mine, meaning people with normal computers can compete in the market and not get pushed out of the way by people with $3000 dollar computers specifically designed just to mine. People also call these computers mining rigs.

Both the forks of Bitcoin have advantages over the original. Simply being the original plus more features. But the old saying is "if it isn't broken, why fix it?". The upgrades version provide faster transaction, something the original seriously lacks. They are all peer-to-peer electronic cash for the internet seeking to eliminate the need of banks to oversee transactions.

As I wrap up my blog, I just wanted to share something interesting I found when doing research instead of just talking all nerdy about virtual currency. Bitcoin was recently used in a very large purchase worth nearly $10 million. In return the customer was receiving a gold casting of the hand of former African president, Nelson Mandela. I guess if you have the money for it and nothing better to buy, why not?

Litecoin.... Is It a Scam?

Today we are going to talk about one of the first alt coins I ever invested in almost about a year ago. The coin was called Litecoin, it caught my attention because it was one of the very first coins on a popular iPhone app called Coinbase. Coinbase allowed the United States population to buy virtual currency with USD. Today it is still the easiest way to start getting into cryptocurrency. All that is required is an United States drivers license for identification and a debit or credit card linked to a bank. Litecoin was added to Coinbase when it was trading at around $22. Within that same week it steadily raised to $46. This is when I decided to invest around $100 into the coin. I instantly regretted my decision and everyday the price dropped more and more. In another post I talked about HODL, Hold On for Dear Life, and that is exactly what I did. Finally over the next month it started to increase in price. It increased all the way to about $120. I thought I was untouchable, however, in a short amount of time after that it began to fall. Afraid to lose my money again I sold at $95. This will probably be one of the stupidest things I have ever done, not only in my investments, but in my life. The reason why??? A month after I sold the price started to increase again.... and again.... and again. Litecoin reached it's all time high of $360 in earlier December. I still lose sleep because this will forever haunt me.

The only reason I can rest, is because something that the creator of the coin Charlie Lee did that came off as a little sketchy to me. Being the owner of the coin, he held a lot of the coin in his personal wallet. This shows that he is personally and fully invested into this project. However, in December around the same time Litecoin reached it's all time high, he decided to sell and donated all of his holdings. He did it to prove a point. His didn't want people thinking he was making money for himself. He had this to say on twitter, “Whenever I tweet about Litecoin price or even just good or bad news, I get accused of doing it for personal benefit. Some people even think I short LTC! So in a sense, it is conflict of interest for me to hold LTC and tweet about it because I have so much influence. I have always refrained from buying/selling LTC before or after my major tweets, but this is something only I know. And there will always be a doubt on whether any of my actions were to further my own personal wealth above the success of Litecoin and crypto-currency in general,” Personally, if I am investing in a company, I want the owner to be fully invested. I found this to be very strange and to this day I still wonder if Charlie Lee is actually a good guy or just trying to make his quick dollar and run. Since this the coin had dropped to about $180, losing half it value since December.

According to Binance, Litecoin (LTC) is one of the oldest cryptocurrencies in existence after Bitcoin, having launched in October 2011. It was developed by Charlie Lee, who remains involved with the coin to this day. Litecoin is a fork of Bitcoin so shares many of the same characteristics but benefits from shorter block generation times of around 2.5 minutes, allowing transactions to clear faster. Litecoin also has lower transaction fees than Bitcoin and can be used as a digital currency on the web to pay for goods and services and to play at crypto casinos. The value of Litecoin has grown significantly, and the currency’s market cap now exceeds $2 billion. Part of Litecoin’s surge in popularity in 2017 has been attributed to the currency adopting a number of new features such as Segregated Witness and the Lightning Network, technology which allows the network to process more transactions.

Downward Slope for Crypto

Virtual currency is at an all time low for this year. With Bitcoin barely above $8k, people are starting to get worried with their money. This is a scary time for cryptocurrency because no one is exactly sure how much lower it will go. The constant fluctuating values makes it very scary for people to start investing at one day it can be up 4% and within 5 hours be down 7%. This forces people to sell because they don't want to lose any more money, however, this just decreases the price even more. I recommend if you invested in a coin or token and it starts to drop in value, hold. Or as the internet says HODL. Now meaning Hold On for Dear Life, was first used on a forum when a drunk investor was upset about the dropping prices of Bitcoin. It blew up and is now one of the most popular saying in the virtual currency industry. Prices reflect off a coins buy wall or sell wall. If investors begin to sell their wallets, prices will drop. On the other hand, if people start to rapidly buy it will increase.

If you recently search up anything having to do with virtual currency, you probably saw an advertisement on another website. For example, on YouTube I constantly have videos about Bitcoin since I search it so often. Due to many scams coming from this. Google announced on Wednesday that they would be banning cryptocurrency advertising. “Improving the ads experience across the web, whether that’s removing harmful ads or intrusive ads, will continue to be a top priority for us,” said Scott Spencer, director of sustainable ads at Google. This is both good and bad for cryptocurrency. The good that come from this is far better then the bad, because less people are going to get scammed. However, ads that are not scams will no longer be able to be put on the internet. This will affect the price, possibly is the reason why we are currently seeing a drop right now. 

Along with everything else, China is escalating its clampdown on cryptocurrency trading. The Chinese government is looking closely at online platforms and mobile apps that offer exchange-like services. China used to be the biggest market for bitcoin trading until last year where they banned it. It will be interesting to watch what else China has in plan for cryptocurrency. As the United States still has no regulation on it, will they plan to replicate China laws, or will they let it be. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that "legislative regulation of cryptocurrency will be definitely required in the future." Also South Korean officials said they were considering following China's lead, and shutting down cryptocurrency trading via exchanges.

I will continue to "HODL" as Bitcoin had been around for awhile and I believe it will stay around for years to come. I will agree it is currently scary with all the changes being made. However, ever since I was a young age I loved to make money, so as long as there is money to be made I will be there. I am sure there are many people who are exactly like me. I tell my mother all the time who doesn't understand anything about virtual currency, you cannot be afraid to lose money to make money.