Disadvantages of Bitcoin

Two-thirds of millennials prefer Bitcoin to gold as safe-haven: survey

Bitcoin is a decentralized peer-to-peer currency. An unknown person or group known to us by Satoshi Nakamoto invented this currency. However, the true identity of the person is still unknown. Bitcoin allows the user to deal with each other directly without needing a central government or regulatory agencies. Bitcoin has slowly become popular, and over a decade, it has taken over the market and has become as valuable as 47000 USD. If you want to earn or trade this currency, click here.

There is no rose without a thorn, even if bitcoin was invented with the sole purpose to facilitate the people, but its use has caused an emergence of several problems that are needed to be addressed today. TheseThese problems are referred to as the bubble. Like advantages, you should also know the disadvantages of bitcoin to avoid any pitfalls and make the right decision regarding this currency. Below I have listed some of the key drawbacks of bitcoin and its impact on people.

Not Widely Accepted

Before you dive into the process of mining or trading bitcoin, you should know that bitcoin is not widely accepted by most governments or any of the banks across the globe. Any government does not back this currency; rather, it is regulated by the miners/user community. Since any government does not back it, most merchants are reluctant to use it as their trading currency. Moreover, the government may also force the merchants not to use bitcoin to keep track of their transactions. So it would help if you kept in mind it might be difficult for you to perform trades with merchants using bitcoin.

Wallet Loss

Once you have mined or bought a bitcoin, next comes the storing of bitcoin. You store your bitcoin in a wallet, i.e. a digital wallet that can be any hard drive or a web-based wallet. After storing bitcoin, it is always susceptible to loss by crashing of harddrive or website where you have stored your wallet. The file can be corrupted in which you have stored your bitcoins. Once the wallet is lost, there is nothing you can do to restore the wallet. This can instantly cause a huge loss for the investor and may lead to his bankruptcy.

Value Fluctuation

Any central authority does not regulate the value of bitcoin. Rather, the whole bitcoin community takes part in deciding the value of bitcoin. The value of bitcoin can fluctuate at any instant; it is very exciting to see the rising value of bitcoin. You can become a millionaire overnight through it, but at the same time, bitcoin is also susceptible to a drop in its value; you can also go to bankruptcy overnight if you don’t pay attention. Moreover, if you bought something using bitcoin and now want to return it and want your bitcoin back, this can cause a lot of confusion in dealing since the value of bitcoin is not constant at any time and can be in a bind in that situation.

Buyer Protection

Even if bitcoin is not accepted by many merchants today, there are still some who like to trade in bitcoin. This trade also comes with a drawback; you might be aware that once you send your bitcoin to somebody, there is nothing in this world you can do to get it back. Many fraud merchants often exploit this feature. When the goods are bought, and the seller does not provide the promised goods to you, now there is nothing you can do to get your refund if the seller does not comply with you.

Corruption

The use of bitcoin can also lead to corruption in an organization and government. Since bitcoin is a currency whose transactions cannot be tracked, this feature is exploited by many people and organizations. Bitcoin is susceptible to being used in the black market for illegal dealings of many things; the user of the dark web can trade their nasty business in bitcoin. Corrupt politicians can use Bitcoin for money laundering as this currency neither has a physical form nor it can be detected, so there is a strong possibility that they can get away with this heinous act of theirs.

Environmental Pollution

The equipment used for mining requires a large amount of power to run; furthermore, it needs to be running all the time; this constant use of energy puts a lot of stress on energy generation plants to generate more energy to cope with the needs of the public. The mining of bitcoin only has added up to 15 million tonnes of carbon to our environment. This is the main reason one tech giant Elon Musk has also backed away from using this currency and halted its trade using this currency.

About Neel Achary 22097 Articles
Neel Achary is the editor of Business News This Week. He has been covering all the business stories, economy, and corporate stories.