'When I First Heard Of Bitcoin' bitcoinblockchain decentralizedinternet
Today’s article is inspired by a rather interesting question someone asked me recently, and it is exactly about what its topic says. At any rate, I was asked to share my experience in crypto and the question I was bluntly asked came down to “ when was the first time you heard of Bitcoin?”.
Everyone has a first-time experience. It is either one’s first time boarding a plane or one’s first swimming experience. First times are unique and they go on to stick in our memories so that when we remember them, we are pleasured by the eidetic scenes we consciously reenact. But not everyone has a good first time. First-time offenders know this to be true when they are put behind bars or heavily fined for driving against the traffic.
As of the time of writing, it is not a final conclusion that Punch reported the event which made Bitcoin a rather interesting story on its page. But it was an indubitable fact that a Nigerian newspaper with wide coverage reported that some South African kidnappers demanded Bitcoin in payment for a ransom in 2018. In other words, it was likely that Punch reported that some kidnappers in South Africa requested to be paid in Bitcoin before they could set their victims free.
The reason for the kidnappers’ choice of Bitcoin was simple enough. It promised to be an untraceable stash with its reliance on blockchain technology! It is, at the risk of villianizing it, the sum of money converted from a fiat currency into a digital form, and stored digitally in an electronic wallet that is designed to synchronise with blockchain protocols.
However, as I savoured every moment of walking down memory lane in this article, the thematic preoccupation of my Bitcoin story is that “a dog does not deserve a bad name…” and it is aimed at a simple exposition of Bitcoin and its underlying technology.