Bitcoin has the largest market share among virtual currencies, and is already being used on a daily basis overseas. Since it is a virtual currency, there are no bills or coins in reality, but it is possible to buy and sell products using smartphones, PCs, etc.
Since there are many advantages such as cheaper remittance fees and the ability to use fiat currencies overseas without changing fiat currencies, the places where you can use them in your daily life are expanding. It won’t be long before we can use Bitcoin like cash.
Bitcoin, which has an increasing presence as money, is expected to become more popular as a means to “use, send, invest”.
Bitcoin is not electronic money
Bitcoin is often confused with electronic money because there are no bills or coins, but it is completely different in nature.
In order to use electronic money, it is necessary to charge the card in advance. By doing so, the amount of money deposited can be used for shopping and the like, and the mechanism of electronic money is that you do not have to bother to pay money from your wallet. Although points may be added at the time of payment, this is a service unique to the company that issues electronic money, and is not included in the “yen” frame.
Bitcoin, on the other hand, is the same currency as “yen,” “dollar,” and “euro,” even if there are no banknotes or coins. Therefore, there is also a currency unit called “BTC”, and the market price fluctuates daily.
However, unlike yen and dollar, bitcoin is not controlled by any organization such as a country or a bank. You can send money to anyone in the world via the Internet, and the fees are much lower. If you like to make money from electronic currency then you should have to use software for trading bitcoin.
What are Wallets for and how they work
Bitcoin wallets, Ethereum, etc. they are used to securely deposit the cryptocurrencies that you have accumulated from mining, or that you have purchased on the market through exchange.
Just as wallets have compartments where you can insert banknotes of different denominations, coins and cards, the same applies to wallets, in this case, the compartments are definitive Coin Address : each coin address hosts a different cryptocurrency. In fact, each cryptocurrency to be deposited and / or withdrawn has a different coin address.
Each Coin Address, therefore, is comparable to an IBAN which however only accepts a single cryptocurrency.
In order to deposit your cryptocurrencies in the wallet, you therefore need a Coin Address. Each currency you intend to insert into the wallet must have its own Coin Address and if you accidentally send Bitcoins to Ethereum’s Coin Address, you will lose your Bitcoins forever.
Each Wallet is also equipped with a PRIVATE KEY, which consists of a secret password that must never be disclosed and useful for accessing one’s wallet and / or carrying out cryptocurrency transactions with other wallets.
In a subsequent point we will clarify how to get a Coin Address: easier to do than to say.
How many types of wallets are there to deposit bitcoins?
There are basically three types of digital wallets.
- Paper Wallet
- Hardware Wallet
- Wallet software
The term Paper Wallet means the paper wallet. It is the easiest way to keep your wallet data: in practice Coin Address and Private Key we can transcribe it on a sheet of paper to be jealously guarded, losing the sheet is like losing your wallet.
The term Hardware Wallet means wallets on digital media such as pens or similar. Technological and very safe products, which in any case have a cost and which should be purchased only when we have a good bundle of electronic coins to be kept.
The term Software Wallet means all the programs that can be downloaded to your computer or smartphone and which store bitcoins, ethereums and other cryptocurrencies.
Also published on Medium.
Kastelein has an Honorary Ph.D. and is Chair Professor of Blockchain at China’s first blockchain University in Nanchang at the Jiangxi Ahead Institute software and Technology. He has over a half a decade experience judging and rewarding some 1000+ innovation projects as an EU expert for the European Commission’s SME Instrument programme as a startup assessor and as a startup judge for the UK government’s Innovate UK division. Kastelein has spoken (keynotes & panels) on Blockchain technology at over 50 events in 30+ cities.
