WITH the US adopting a hardline policy, many predict a war could break out sooner or later. If so, what is the best currency or asset to hold on to in times of war?
Your life, of course. Now you can read stories like where the safest countries are amidst tensions between US and North Korea, Russia, China and Syria, people have been dreading the penultimate consequence, that of a nuclear war.
The war predictions not only came from experts but also lately a mystic who had accurately predicted President Trump’s victory and has now foretold that WW3 will come and that has caused some people to worry.
Shall we keep key currency like the US dollars or opt for gold, which experts say is a safe haven as witnessed last week when gold price surged amidst tensions in the Korean peninsula.
But in this digital era, some experts pointed out that in times of war or political unrest gold and any currency are inferior to cryptocurrency like Bitcoins because gold and currencies can be robbed or get lost and are difficult to move around the country or overseas.
A cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency that uses cryptography for security. A cryptocurrency is difficult or almost impossible to counterfeit because of this security feature. A defining feature of a cryptocurrency, and arguably its most endearing allure, is its organic nature; it is not issued by any central authority, rendering it theoretically immune to government interference or manipulation.
The first cryptocurrency to capture the public imagination was Bitcoin, which was launched in 2009 by an individual or group known under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.
Credit Suisse said it is not so far a mainstream currency and yet it would be unwise to ignore it. Some $14.9 billion worth of Bitcoins were in circulation in January 2017, and blockchain, the technology underpinning Bitcoin, has attracted plenty of attention for its disruptive potential in banking, trading, and even media.
For example, now a Laotian coming to work in Thailand can send his wage back home using Bitcoins to his mom’s purse without having to go through banks, saving him exchange and transfer fees.
Bitcoins make it easier to transfer funds between two parties in a transaction; these transfers are facilitated through the use of public and private keys for security purposes. These fund transfers are done with minimal processing fees, allowing users to avoid the steep fees charged.
Central to the genius of Bitcoin is the block chain it uses to store an online ledger of all the transactions that have ever been conducted using Bitcoins, providing a data structure for this ledger that is exposed to a limited threat from hackers and can be copied across all computers running Bitcoin software.
Many experts see this block chain as having important uses in technologies, such as online voting and crowdfunding.
Bitcoin is different than any currency you’ve used before, so it’s very important to understand some key points. Unlike government issued money, that can be inflated at will, the supply of Bitcoin is mathematically limited to twenty one million Bitcoins, and that can never be changed.
You can use them to send or receive any amount of money, with anyone, anywhere in the world, at very low cost. Bitcoin payments are impossible to block, and Bitcoin wallets can’t be frozen. Short of turning off the entire world’s internet, and keeping it turned off, the Bitcoin network is unstoppable and uncensorable.
Bitcoin.com explains as to why we should use this digital money. It says you can use Bitcoins to buy things at shops like Amazon and Starbucks at discounts.
Bitcoin is legal in most counties in the world including US, Canada, India, Japan, China, Hong Kong and our neighbors Laos and Cambodia, Singapore and Malaysia.
What about, the Land of Smile? The Bank of Thailand suggested that Bitcoin is not illegal but warned against its use in 2016.
To use Bitcoins, you need to have basic idea as to how to get it, how to use it and how to store it.
But whether we will have time for investing in Bitcoins or not, nobody knows as it has been reported in many Western newspapers that a self-proclaimed ‘messenger of God’ who predicted President Trump’s rise to power has warned global nuclear war is just a few weeks away.
A mystic who goes by the name of Horacio Villegas has revealed World War III is coming on May 13 and will end around October this year.
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Top: Some Bitcoins. Photo: Antana (CC-BY-SA-2.0)
By Kowit Sanandang
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