live24

Bitcoin is incredibly far ahead of the competition in all the areas that matter. Honestly, I wish altcoins were doing better in terms of adoption. But most are struggling. Today, bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency fulfilling a real purpose for millions of people. In places where inflation is high, like Venezuela and Argentina, people use bitcoin as a store of value. In these kinds of places, if you store money in the local currency, it's guaranteed to lose value over time. At least with bitcoin, you have a good chance of increasing your purchasing power. In the "developed" world, many hold bitcoin as a hedge against future monetary chaos. Central banks are apparently bad stewards of our money, and people are starting to look toward alternatives. Bitcoin has also been used by organizations like WikiLeaks to raise money when Visa, Mastercard and PayPal shut down their accounts. It's money that can't be censored. Bitcoin's large user base alone sets it apart. But it also has a huge group of developers and contributors who volunteer their time to improve it. And it has the largest network of computers (miners) securing the network. Importantly, bitcoin is by far the most liquid cryptocurrency. You can exchange bitcoin for local currency around the world using an exchange. Bitcoin also has some nice features that are designed to reward long-term holders. The main one is bitcoin's "halving" effect. Every four years, the amount of new bitcoin coming onto the market gets cut in half. Previous halvings occurred in 2012 and 2016. Both served as powerful price catalysts. The next halving will occur on May 18. The inflation rate (amount of new bitcoin coming on the market per year) will be reduced from around 4% to 2%.