What Are The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Bitcoin?

What Are The Advantages Of Bitcoin?

i.        Payment freedom –

It is possible to send and receive bitcoins anywhere in the world at any time.

No bank holidays. No borders. No bureaucracy.

Bitcoin allows its users to be in full control of their money.

ii.       Choose your own fees –

There is no fee to receive bitcoins, and many wallets let you control how large a fee to pay when spending.

Higher fees can encourage faster confirmation of your transactions.

Fees are unrelated to the amount transferred, so it’s possible to send 100,000 bitcoins for the same fee it costs to send 1 bitcoin.

Additionally, merchant processors exist to assist merchants in processing transactions, converting bitcoins to fiat currency and depositing funds directly into merchants’ bank accounts daily.

As these services are based on Bitcoin, they can be offered for much lower fees than with PayPal or credit card networks.

iii.      Fewer risks for merchants –

Bitcoin transactions are secure, irreversible, and do not contain customers’ sensitive or personal information.

This protects merchants from losses caused by fraud or fraudulent chargebacks, and there is no need for PCI compliance.

Merchants can easily expand to new markets where either credit cards are not available or fraud rates are unacceptably high.

The net results are lower fees, larger markets, and fewer administrative costs.

iv.      Security and control –

Bitcoin users are in full control of their transactions; it is impossible for merchants to force unwanted or unnoticed charges as can happen with other payment methods.

Bitcoin payments can be made without personal information tied to the transaction. This offers strong protection against identity theft.

Bitcoin users can also protect their money with backup and encryption.

v.       Transparent and neutral –

All information concerning the Bitcoin money supply itself is readily available on the block chain for anybody to verify and use in real-time.

No individual or organization can control or manipulate the Bitcoin protocol because it is cryptographically secure.

This allows the core of Bitcoin to be trusted for being completely neutral, transparent and predictable.

What Are The Disadvantages Of Bitcoin?

i.        Degree of acceptance –

Many people are still unaware of Bitcoin.

Every day, more businesses accept bitcoins because they want the advantages of doing so, but the list remains small and still needs to grow in order to benefit from network effects.

ii.       Volatility –

The total value of bitcoins in circulation and the number of businesses using Bitcoin are still very small compared to what they could be.

Therefore, relatively small events, trades, or business activities can significantly affect the price. In theory, this volatility will decrease as Bitcoin markets and the technology matures.

Never before has the world seen a start-up currency, so it is truly difficult (and exciting) to imagine how it will play out.

iii.      Ongoing development –

Bitcoin software is still in beta with many incomplete features in active development.

New tools, features, and services are being developed to make Bitcoin more secure and accessible to the masses.

Some of these are still not ready for everyone.

Most Bitcoin businesses are new and still offer no insurance.

In general, Bitcoin is still in the process of maturing.

Source:          Computta