It’s becoming more and more clear that despite
what central banking ‘experts’ previously shouted from the rooftops,
cryptocurrency isn’t going anywhere.
Recently, bitcoin showed it’s the connection
to the stock market and other global equities when it plummeted along with the
rest during the mid-March pandemic plummet. But since then, the daddy
of all cryptos has climbed back from $4000.00 to $9500. So, what can you do
with bitcoin?
Safe-Haven
Prior to the pandemic plummet, BTC proponents
were touting that it’s a safe-haven market for your investments. On the
flip-side, traditional financial pundits were declaring the opposite. Well, the
nay-sayers are eating their words. In the first quarter, bitcoin outperformed
the S&P 500, and already in May is outperforming gold.
Some might try to point out the volatility,
because BTC fell on March 12th, losing half its price. Well, news flash, everything
dropped and BTC is the one that has most significantly recovered. So, bitcoin
is in fact, very much looking like a safe-haven
investment at this point.
But if you already own coins?
Online Casino and Sports Betting
Sportsbooks that accept bitcoin can be used to instantly convert your BTC to cash plus some sweet bonuses without actually selling out. You can almost look at it as a cash BTC wallet.
If you are nervous about indicators showing a
coming price fall, you can load your sportsbook account using bitcoin where
it’s instantly converted to dollars. When you can back out, your current dollar
amount goes back into your BTC wallet. So, although you would lose out on any
gains during that time period, you would be protected from loss. Plus, if you
like punting on your favorite Premier League team, you can move your money in
and out of your favorite bookmaker in a matter of minutes instead of days.
The blockchain’s inherent verification makes
funding and withdrawing from sportsbooks a breeze. Traditionally, unless you
went to a brick and mortar outlet, you had to wait for days and sometimes a
full week when trying to withdraw a significant amount of money from your
account. Now, with cryptos, the average time is 12 minutes.
Secure Online Purchases
One of the biggest issues the public and
corporations alike have seen over the last decade or more is cyber-security or
better put, a lack thereof.
We are constantly putting our personal
information into form fields at the behest of online vendors, financial
institutions, etc. The problem is, sites are constantly getting scrape for
info, or even worse, some of these sites secretly sell your info.
Bitcoin and its blockchain are the answer to
this problem. Contrary to what many might think, BTC isn’t completely
anonymous. You
can track the BTC address to its owner. That said, when purchasing online,
you are using encrypted BTC information. It’s the equivalent of a no-reply
address. You can see where it came from, but there’s not really anything you
can do with it. So, hackers won’t be able to steal any of your personal info or
banking info because you didn’t enter any to make your purchase.
On top of this, the blockchain itself provides
a lot of security for the purchaser. If you are unfamiliar with the technology,
in a nutshell, it’s an immutable ledger. Essentially, when you make a purchase
with bitcoin, no one person holds the keys to the filing cabinet. The files are
held simultaneously across the entire network. So, each thing that happens on
the blockchain is recorded and reconciled. It’s verified over and over again.
So, this makes it virtually impossible for you to be mischarged,
double-charged, or rebilled, etc.
The only catch with BTC is because it is
decentralized, there is no-one to handle refunds. So, you should only do
business with reputable organizations and vendors. The blockchain proves that
you made the purchase, which is enough that any legitimate business will want
to follow through with their end of the bargain because their reputation would
be put in jeopardy; the proof is in the immutable ledger and online purchases
are more secure than ever before.
