Bitcoin, the international cryptocurrency that is bringing our world ever closer by linking together countries under one, huge open-source currency.
Latterly, we have seen the emergence of bitcoin ATM’s around east London and its fair to say this correlates with its rapidly increasing popularity throughout the digital world.
IF you don’t know already, bitcoin is a form of cryptocurrency – this means it is a fully digital asset that cannot be turned into any sort of ‘real money’ rather it uses “P2P technology” (peer to peer technology) to operate without the means of any higher authority.
Its rising popularity has been made clear by its price – a decade or two ago bitcoins were worth relatively nothing, with 1 bitcoin averaging £7 - nowadays it has skyrocketed to a whopping £6200 in 2017 and we have seen a handful benefit from this; the plethora of lucky individuals who chose to invest in bitcoin before it became partially ‘mainstream’ have now made hundreds of thousands of pounds. Funnily enough a distant relative of mine did invest in two bitcoins 5 years ago and describes it as “a complete surprise, I really had no intention of making dosh, rather was just interested as to what the future would bring” – Cousin,24
There are a total of 57 registered bitcoin ATM’s dotted around London (not to say there are many more informal sellers) with 10-13 or so placed around Ilford, Barking & Dagenham. We see how these areas are preparing themselves for a future where cryptos may just become the preferred currency generally – worldwide payments with low processing fees; could it get any better?
Whilst the government largely despises of cryptos due to the fact that they cannot tax it, it’s fair to say that it looks like bitcoin is going to rise into a promising future, hopefully it brings our world closer and stimulates connections between nations (i.e. through trade)
Aksaan Arif – Bancrofts School
