Bitcoin, or BTC, is known as the ‘currency of the internet’. If you haven’t heard of Bitcoin, it is an entirely online, secure and transferable money that is held on multiple protected servers across the globe. If you have heard of the term, you may have attributed it to a passing online fad that doesn’t have real world application and isn’t ‘real money’.
However, it’s quickly becoming an international decentralized digital money that has universal implementation. Bitcoin has no government, company or bank in charge and is said to be impossible to hack, its coding so incredibly long and complicated they have said it would be easier to hack into your own local bank. Its regulation is strictly controlled and released in amounts that are continually halved meaning that there are only, and will most likely ever be, only 21 million coins in circulation.
How is this ‘real money’? Just ask Lamborghini, who in December 2013 used BitPay, a company which advertises itself as a ‘Bitcoin payment processor’, to sell their first ever vehicle to a customer who paid entirely with Bitcoins. Or London’s Shoreditch district, which just received its first Bitcoin ATM, which converts Bitcoins to cash that can be withdrawn.
So, one might ask themselves that if Bitcoins are only exist digitally, what is to stop someone from hacking all Bitcoins, or just shutting the whole system down? This is an extremely important question, because if Bitcoins were even a tiny bit insecure they would have no value. That would essentially be asking people to trust and invest in a box of pizza that’s left in the common room of a fraternity. The protocol and cryptography behind Bitcoin has a perfect track record, and while flaws have been fixed in general programming, it has never been hacked or been open to vulnerabilities.
Today, Bitcoin has become so popular, and showing to be an ‘online fad’ that could have long-lasting permanence. Google has announced quietly it is looking into Bitcoin and working to see how to best incorporate it into their website and company.
So what could Google do with Bitcoin? They haven’t announced officially yet, but Internet speculation and ideas run rampant in forums. From suggestions allowing users to leave tips to YouTube channels, allowing purchases via Google Play, to fully intragrating BTC into Google Wallet and the market of Google Finance. There are many creative, applicable ways Google can integrate Bitcoin to their business development and if Google, known for being at the forefront of online applications, is paying attention, you should too.
