$BTC o bitcoin. El puto amo. Como diría la peli de Lars von Trier, “el jefe de todo esto”. Muy de moda actualmente porque está petando todos sus registros históricos. Hasta en Twitter España es trending topic …
Veamos de nuevo Coingecko, que trae más chicha que Coinpaprika. Si el post de ETH ya era modo Biblia, ni te quiero contar éste …
What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency. It is a decentralized digital currency that is based on cryptography. As such, it can operate without the need of a central authority like a central bank or a company. Bitcoin is unlike government-issued or fiat currencies such as US Dollars or Euro in which they are controlled by the country’s central bank. The decentralized nature allows it to operate on a peer-to-peer network whereby users are able to send funds to each other without going through intermediaries.
Una criptomoneda. Una moneda digital descentralizada. Ése es el concepto absoluto. Sin ataduras, sin regulación de gobiernos o bancos centrales.
Who created Bitcoin?
Bitcoin was created by an unknown individual or group that goes by the name Satoshi Nakamoto with the idea of an electronic peer-to-peer cash system as it is written in a whitepaper. Until today, the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto has not been verified though there has been speculation and rumor as to who Satoshi might be.
Es poco probable que fuera creado por una sola persona, pero se le atribuye a Satoshi Nakamoto. A día de hoy, nadie conoce su identidad.
When was Bitcoin launched?
Bitcoin was launched in January 2009 with the first genesis block mined on 9th January 2009.
La moneda minó su primer bloque (génesis) el 9 de enero de 2009. Más de 10 añitos ya a sus espaldas.
How does Bitcoin work?
While the general public perceives Bitcoin as some kind of physical looking coin, it is actually far from that. Under the hood, Bitcoin is actually a distributed accounting ledger that is stored in a form of a chain of blocks, hence the name blockchain.
In a centralized system like the ones operated by a commercial bank, given a situation where Alice wants to transact with Bob, the bank is the only entity that holds the ledger that describes how much balance Alice and Bob has. As the bank maintains the ledger, they will do the verification as to whether Alice has enough funds to send to Bob. Finally when the transaction successfully takes place, the Bank will deduct Alice’s account and credit Bob’s account with the latest amount.
Bitcoin conversely works in a decentralized manner. Since there is no central figure like a bank to verify the transactions and maintain the ledger, a copy of the ledger is distributed across Bitcoin nodes. A node is a piece of software that anybody can download and run to participate in the network. With that, everybody has a copy of how much balance Alice and Bob has, and there will be no dispute of fund balance.
Now, if Alice were to transact with Bob using Bitcoin. Alice will have to broadcast her transaction to the network that she intends to send $1 to Bob in equivalent amount of Bitcoin. How would the system be able to determine that she has enough Bitcoin to execute the transaction and also to ensure she does not double spend that same amount.
Here is where mining takes place. A Bitcoin miner will use his or her computer rigs to validate Alice’s transaction to be added into the ledger. In order to stop a miner from adding any arbitrary transactions, they will need to solve a complex puzzle. Only if the miner is able to solve the puzzle (called the Proof of Work), which happens at random, then he or she is able to add the transactions into the ledger and the record is final.
Since running these computer rigs cost money due to capital expenditure for buying the rigs and the cost of electricity, miners are rewarded with new supply of Bitcoins that is part of its monetary system and some amount of fees paid by the person who wishes to transact (in this case it is Alice).
This makes the Bitcoin ledger resilient against fraud in a trustless manner. While it is resilient, there are still some risks associated with the system such as the 51% attack where by miners control more than 51% of the total computation power and also there can be security risks outside of the control of the Bitcoin protocol.
Todo ese tocho para decir que cada operación de cada dirección se registra en una base de datos descentralizada (blockchain), visible, accesible y trazable por cualquiera.
Siempre que haya nodos funcionando, conteniendo una copìa de esa blockchain, bitcoin seguirá activo y trabajando.
How to keep your Bitcoin safe?
If you are going to be keeping some Bitcoin, is it important to learn how to keep them safe from theft.
When working with transacting Bitcoin, you would typically be doing it on your personal computer. Since your personal computer is connected to the internet, it has the potential to be infected by malware or spywares which could compromise your Bitcoin.
One of the ways of mitigating that risk is to use hardware wallets such as Trezor and Ledger. Hardware wallets are essentially external devices that look like USB sticks. A hardware wallet secures your private key that holds your Bitcoin into an external device outside of your personal computer. When you intend to transact, you would connect the hardware wallet into your personal computer, and all the key signing in order to transact would be done in the hardware itself outside of your computer.
However, if you physically lose your hardware wallet without a key phrase backup, there is no other way of recovering your Bitcoin ever. As such when setting up your hardware wallet, always remember to keep a copy of the key phrase and put it somewhere safe from fire or flood.
Todas las direcciones de todas las monedas tienen una clave pública y una clave privada. Esa clave privada puede venir en forma de seed (12 o 24 palabras), un fichero json encriptado, un chorro de números y letras, …
Vale. Esto ya lo hemos dicho alguna vez: Nunca, NUNCA facilites tus claves privadas a nadie. Quien tiene tu clave privada tiene tus monedas (El famoso “Not your keys, not your coins“).
Teniendo esos dos puntos en cuenta, guarda la dupla como mejor te parezca: En papel, grabado a fuego, en granito, en una wallet física, en una lógica, …, hay tantas opciones!
Bitcoin Halving
Bitcoin Halving or sometimes also known as the Halvening, refers to the reduction of block reward to miners by half. This is part of the Bitcoin monetary policy, in which after every approximately 4 years, the mining reward will be halved towards the limited capped supply of 21 million Bitcoin. Once 21 million of Bitcoin have been minted, there will no longer be new supply of it rewarded to miners, and miners are expected to earn revenue by way of transaction fees.
In order to follow the real time of when the halving will take place, you can bookmark the CoinGecko’s bitcoin halving page.
This is seen as a significant event for couple of reasons. Firstly, traders may speculate on the possible scarcity of Bitcoin making way to high volatility. Secondly, as miners’ rewards will be reduced, we may see some miners exiting the market as they could not sustain the lower profitability. This in turn may cause the hashing rate to reduce and mining pools may consolidate. Due to this, the bitcoin network may be a little unstable during the halving period.
Halving es básicamente la reducción de las recompensas del minado de bloque a la mitad. Se produce cada 4 años aproximadamente. Tiene su importancia porque Bitcoin es una moneda deflacionaria. Es decir, cada vez más escasa y más difícil de conseguir. Es por ello que lo comparan con el oro digital.
Bueno, después de intentar acortar todo lo posible toda la info que ofrece Coingecko (la moneda lo merece), apuntaremos alguna cosilla más.
- Algoritmo: SHA256, PoW. Es decir, máquinas físicas se encargan de minar nuevos bloques. Recordad que ya tratamos su idoneidad en la entrada de ETH (yo soy más partidario del PoS).
- Fees: Al igual que ETH y casi cualquier otra moneda Pow, la fee depende tanto de los mineros como del propio precio de la moneda. Cuanta más dificultad de minado (mucha gente pidiendo registrar sus transacciones y poca gente haciéndolo), más sube la fee. Cuanto más alto es el precio de la moneda, más sube en neto la fee (aunque se mantenga el porcentaje).
Este asunto es importante. Un CEX convencional puede cobrar 50k satos por una retirada. Con el Bitcoin al precio actual (18k$), esa comisión es de 9$. Con el Bitcoin al doble, 18$ … - Capitalización: Como era de esperar, Bitcoin tiene la dominancia del mercado. Actualmente un 66% (es de locos!). En números, unos 330kM$ (0.33 billones. Para contextualizar, el PIB en España es 1.2 billones), sobre un mercado total de 500kM$. Recordad que cuanto tocó techo la moneda en 2017 la capitalización global era de 800kM$. Estamos casi al mismo precio con mucho menos dinero en el mercado, de ahí ese peligroso 66%.
- Volumen diario: Muy relacionado con lo anterior. Números que desbordan a cualquier otra moneda. Actualmente, unos 40kM$ al día. La siguiente, ETH, 16kM$. No hay color.
- Hard Forks: Ya hemos tratado alguno (BSV) y no nos vamos a extender. Ser la primera moneda, la original, implica que en varios momentos su comunidad se divide de acuerdo a los criterios que consideran adecuados o necesarios. Con cada división “dura”, se clona la cadena de bloques y se genera una moneda nueva. A su vez, esa nueva moneda lleva a más desavenencias, divisiones, nuevas cadenas y nuevas monedas (que se lo digan a Bitcoin Cash).
Se podría decir que con cada Hard Fork, Bitcoin tiene un hijito. Pues ya es familia numerosa 🤣
En fin, creo que ya está bien por hoy. La entrada ha salido más extensa de lo que pretendía. Quizá tendría que haberla recortado o capitulizado.
También os digo que esto es sólo la puntita. Si quieres saber más de Bitcoin, hay como ochocientas formas de hacerlo. Yo empezaría por su página oficial:
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