Bitcoin hits a new high. How long will it take to mine one using your home computer?

As society develops, more and more new things are emerging. Some things are so popular that you can't even understand why they exist. Bitcoin is such a thing, a virtual encrypted digital currency. This thing that ordinary people can't understand is becoming popular all over the world.

Bitcoin's true identity

On March 13, 2021, the value of a single Bitcoin exceeded the $60,000 mark, or RMB 390,000, while at the end of January 2021, its price was only about $30,000. In less than two months, the price doubled, and no one could have expected the price of Bitcoin to grow so wildly.

Bitcoin was born in 2009. Simply put, it is a virtual currency that can only be obtained through calculations on networked computers. The computer obtains the answer to a certain equation through calculation, and each equation with an answer represents a Bitcoin.

The number of equations is limited, which means that Bitcoin is also limited, which explains why the price of Bitcoin keeps rising. People compare the process of computer calculation to "mining", just like people who used to dig for gold, except that they are "mining" virtual currency.

Recently, I saw a news report that most Internet cafes in Seoul, South Korea use computers for "mining". Due to the impact of the epidemic, the income from "mining" is much higher than normal business. So can ordinary people like us use our home computers for "mining"? Can this bring us rich returns?

How long does it take you to dig one?

I can only say that you are too naive to have such an idea. You have no idea how huge the amount of computing power of Bitcoin is. If you really use your computer to mine day and night, it will take at least 18,000 years to mine one Bitcoin. By that time, it is not certain whether the earth will still exist.

When some people realized the value of Bitcoin in the early days, they would rent a factory in the western region and put hundreds or even thousands of computers there to "mine". Why the western region? Because the electricity is cheap there. The power consumption of the computer clusters in several factories is amazing. Only by going to the western region where the electricity is relatively cheap can costs be saved.

Will you definitely make money if you dig it up?

So did all these people make a fortune? No, many lost everything. This involves another characteristic of Bitcoin: it is fully capitalized. Its price is completely determined by the capital market. The characteristic of capital is that it fluctuates, which is magnified in Bitcoin.

The decline of Bitcoin is unbearable for most people. In the early days, the price of Bitcoin dropped from $1,000 to $150, and even on the verge of bankruptcy. If you invest a large amount of money in mining during a certain period of time, but when you need to sell Bitcoin or recover the funds, Bitcoin begins to fall sharply, the result is that you will lose all your money.

Even so, there are still many "miners" around the world who join the ranks of "mining" without hesitation, and we have to sigh at people's madness for wealth. Because of the complete capitalization, those who have accumulated a large number of Bitcoins in the early stage can easily manipulate the market. The future direction of Bitcoin is completely uncertain. Experts have also issued a warning that ordinary people should never touch Bitcoin.