Originally published at: The True Cost of Cryptocurrency - ethical.net
Amidst the loud hum of computers, digital gold is born. Churning and churning, hundreds of computers mine for a new form of currency – one that professes to be the decentralized, deflationary disruptor of the modern banking system. It goes by many names – Dogecoin, VibuCoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin – but they can all be…
… and in the news this week, El Salvador has just become the first country in the world to make Bitcoin an official currency (alongside the US dollar).
The government developed it’s own wallet app and offered people about $30 in bitcoin in order to get people to sign up, but it didn’t get off to the best start, with all kinds of tech glitches, Apple not offering the app on the app store, and the price of bitcoin dropping hugely to the lowest value for a month.