When Bitcoin was first introduced all the way back in January 2009, almost a decade ago, it might have seemed like a pipe dream.
But now people are making a lot of money off the cryptocurrency, especially its elusive founder.
Little is known about this person, apart from the name Satoshi Nakamoto. The name is a masculine Japanese name, but it could easily be representative of a group rather than one individual.
Regardless, one thing is known:
.
No one has heard from the founder since an email sent back in 2011, but it is known that they have never spent a single bitcoin they owns, which amounts to a staggering one million. This means they could have as much as $17 billion at their disposal, making him the 52nd
person in the world.
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Bitcoin is one of those topics which everyone seems to be talking about but most people know nothing about. Even when it comes to those who have invested in the cryptocurrency, it's still a topic that many don't understand. Regardless of the confusion around the topic, it seems that things have skyrocketed for Bitcoin, with a lot of us having missed the boat. After all, if your grandma is asking you what Bitcoin is, it probably means it's too big to get on board with at this stage.
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Yet one person who believed in the currency at an early stage was none other than American rapper 50 Cent. In what was a risky move at the time, the artist accepted Bitcoin as payment when he released the album Animal Ambition in 2014, which sold its fair share of copies despite receiving a mixed critical response. During this period the currency was valued at around $663, so after the album pulled in around 700 bitcoin in sales, it all amounted to $400,000.
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Now, however, the value of Bitcoin has risen drastically. It now is valued at around $10,000 to $12,000 per coin - which potentially means that the rapper could be sitting on between $7 million and $8.5 million for that sale alone.
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Only recently the cryptocurrency was rising towards $20,000 value per coin, but last week it fell over 10 percent, with its total drop in the last month equating to 40 percent. On the other hand, its overall rise is up to 1,300 percent over the course of the last year, so these drops aren't quite as significant as they sound.
Not everyone is so keen on Bitcoin.
South Korea promised to outlaw the sale of Bitcoin, recently settling to ban anonymous bank accounts being used to buy or sell cryptocurrencies - something that will have a significant effect on one of the world's most popular Bitcoin markets.
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There's general fear that the lack of regulation can lead to exploitation by certain persons, with even the wolf of Wall Street himself, Jordan Belfort,
from what he refers to as a "huge danger" with the potential to be a "f***ing disaster". As it stands now, there's no way to know for sure, but fiddy is raking it in regardless.
