Crypto is a relatively new technology, but it’s already chock-full of fascinating tidbits that you probably didn’t know. What are the most interesting facts about crypto?
Satoshi Nakamoto didn’t invent blockchain or cryptography.
Satoshi Nakamoto is a pseudonym for the person or group of people who developed bitcoin. The identity of Satoshi is not known, and it has been speculated that he may be Dr. Craig Wright, an Australian academic and businessman.
The name Satoshi Nakamoto was selected for its meaning in Japanese: “wisdom”, “reason”, and “careless one”. It also reflects the fact that in Japan, Nakamoto would often use his first name as a family name (i.e., his name would be written as Satoshi Kan).
Vitalik Buterin was only 17 when he published the paper that formed Ethereum.
The story of cryptocurrency is much like that of the internet: it was built by a group of young people who were just starting to get their feet wet and then quickly evolved into something bigger than anyone could have ever imagined. One such person is Vitalik Buterin, who was only 17 when he published the paper that formed Ethereum.
Buterin was born in Russia but raised in Canada. He came from a math-oriented family and had a passion for computers, with an interest in coding languages since he was eight years old. He attended the University of Waterloo, where he studied computer science and economics (as well as how they relate to each other).
In 2013, while still at the university, Buterin published his now-famous white paper on Bitcoin. It outlined how cryptocurrencies could be used to run “smart contracts”—a basic form of programming that allows different parties to interact with one another securely without trusting any third party with their details or financial information.
Only about 1000 people own about 40% of all Bitcoin in circulation.
When you hear the word “Bitcoin,” you probably think of cryptocurrency. And when you hear the word “cryptocurrency,” what comes to mind? Anonymity? Control-free money? A decentralized currency that can be used anywhere in the world and isn’t controlled by any government or bank or corporation or individual or group of people? Right on all counts.
But did you know that some people control a lot of Bitcoin? What does this mean for crypto enthusiasts and users alike? Let’s find out!
The most common way to get bitcoin is by buying it from an exchange like OKX, Coinbase, or Gemini. You have to have another form of currency (like US dollars) to buy bitcoins with; there are no physical bitcoins like other currencies have. Once you’ve bought your coins, they’re stored in your digital wallet. If someone steals them from your wallet and transfers them elsewhere, then they’re gone forever unless the thief decides to send them back (or unless they accidentally spend them).
The Winklevoss twins are among the richest people in crypto.
While the Winklevoss twins are best known as the founders of the idea behind Facebook, they’re also among the richest people in crypto. The duo reportedly owns about $1 billion worth of bitcoin—which is more than enough to make them both billionaires, even with the current bear market.
The Winklevoss twins were among the earliest adopters of bitcoin and were involved in a series of lawsuits against Mark Zuckerberg over whether he stole their idea for Facebook. They’ve since dropped those suits and have become big investors in crypto startups like Gemini exchange and Venture Capital firms investing in blockchain technologies.
Bancor Network has a market cap of $1.8 billion and a founder who’s only 27 years old.
Bancor Network is a platform that allows you to convert one cryptocurrency into another. It’s worth $1.8 billion and was started by a 27-year-old.
Bancor launched in 2017, and it has a market cap of more than $1.8 billion—that’s almost as much as Twitter! And its CEO is just 27 years old. The Bancor Network uses blockchain technology to create smart tokens, which allow users to trade between different cryptocurrencies instantly without having to go through third parties or exchanges (think PayPal).
The idea behind this project is that if everyone could easily exchange their digital assets for each other, we’d all have more options in life and fewer restrictions on how we look at money or finance our lives.
The first Bitcoin transaction was for two pizzas.
The first bitcoin transaction was made on January 12, 2009. It was for two pizzas and was worth 10,000 BTC (which is around $41 today). But if you were to buy two pizzas with that same amount of bitcoin today, it would be an eye-watering $8.5 million—and that’s not even taking into account the value of Bitcoin since then.
The person who made this purchase? An unnamed person who went by “Laszlo Hanyecz.” And how did he pay? He used PayPal.
A man once lost $127 million by throwing away his hard drive. He only realized it 20 years later!
A Canadian programmer lost $127 million in Bitcoin by throwing away his hard drive.
In 2010, a man from British Columbia named James Howells was a computer programmer and an early investor in bitcoin. At the time, he was working on a project that included writing code for wallets — software programs used to store and spend cryptocurrency like Bitcoin.
One day, while cleaning up his desk, Howells accidentally threw away the hard drive containing all of that information. If only he had known then what we know now. The value of a single bitcoin jumped from around $0 when Howells dumped his hard drive at a landfill in Newport, Wales (about 20 miles west of Cardiff) to nearly $19,000 as of December 2018!
A serial hacker steals Bitcoin and gives it to charities (but gives it back if you ask nicely).
It is a known fact that the internet is full of hackers, and some of these hackers have stolen Bitcoin in the past. In fact, one hacker has stolen $1.3 million worth of cryptocurrency so far—and he’s given it all back to charities!
In April 2019, computer programmer Dan Robinson was arrested for stealing $1 million worth of Bitcoin from crypto exchanges by hacking into computers at companies like Coinbase and Binance. But this wasn’t his first time getting caught stealing cryptocurrencies.
He had previously been sentenced to five years in prison for another theft where he stole around $70 million worth of cryptocurrency through an elaborate scheme involving fake invoices and fake bank accounts (which sounds hard!). He served only half of his sentence before being released on parole earlier this year.
Robinson recently admitted to another theft: that time, he stole 50 Bitcoins from charity organizations, including Save The Children UK and others across Europe as well as North America, between March 2019-April 2020. But instead of keeping them or selling them off on the market as most thieves would do with such a large amount (or even just keeping them), Robinson used them all up within a few months by donating them back to various charities using Bitcoin addresses found online.
Fake Satoshi Nakamoto accounts are worth more than real ones on Twitter.
If you’re looking for a shortcut to fame and fortune in the world of cryptocurrency, there’s one sure-fire way to get there: start a fake Satoshi Nakamoto Twitter account.
In this day and age, the value of a social media account is measured not just by how many followers it has but also by how much effort was put into acquiring those followers. A single celebrity or brand can pay for thousands of bots or so-called “sock puppet” accounts—fake people who retweet their posts—in an attempt to make themselves look more popular than they really are.
It turns out that while real accounts don’t have as much value (because people aren’t willing to pay as much), fake ones can be worth more than $100,000 each!
A Washing Machine Is Now Mining Bitcoin.
You may think this is a joke, but it’s not. You can actually buy a laundry machine that mines Bitcoin. The product is called the Laundromat, and it’s made by a company called Riddle & Code.
The Laundromat is an all-in-one machine that washes clothes while also mining Bitcoin or Ethereum (the first cryptocurrency). The device connects to the internet via Wi-Fi and uses your existing electricity supply to power its components. It aims to solve “the problem of wasted resources.” According to its website, every time you do laundry you are wasting electricity.
Crypto is weird, but we still love it! Weird is a good thing. This is a new technology, and it’s not going to be perfect right away. We all need to keep that in mind as the world of crypto evolves. It’s also worth noting that this industry is still very young—and thus, there are many opportunities for progress and improvement ahead of us.