What is an asset-backed cryptocurrency?

What is an asset-backed cryptocurrency?

Would the world benefit from an asset-backed cryptocurrency? YES! So how does an asset-backed cryptocurrency works?

Since Bitcoin introduced the idea of digital forms of money to a massive audience, the characterizing topic of basically all crypto tokens has been their extraordinary instability. But soon all that can change for the asset-backed cryptocurrency and asset-backed tokens (ABT).

The world is loaded up with resources, including land, stocks, gold, oil, among numerous others. The vast majority of these benefits are not actually transferable or sub-dividable physically. A change to a computerized framework along the lines of blockchain presents a suitable answer for these issues, subsequently the developing enthusiasm for asset-backed cryptocurrency.

What is an asset-backed cryptocurrency?

An asset-backed cryptocurrency or token is a cryptocurrency that utilizes a physical asset, such as real estate, for investment and revenue purposes.

They are considered to be the most reliable because the revenue system is backed by a physical asset which can be seen and accessed and therefore, it is easier to trust. Some analysts consider asset-backed cryptocurrency to be the next steps in the growth of cryptocurrencies.

There exist numerous digital currencies on top of the blockchain. The currencies (or tokens) can be used to transfer ownership of assets or objects outside the blockchain. This, in essence, is the tokenization of real assets.

Is an asset-backed token possible?

Land, gold, fiat money or oil are all examples of resources that could support and be part of the development of crypto tokens and possibly asset-backed cryptocurrency.

Being connected to a physical resource gives something extra and can influence how that asset-backed cryptocurrency is being transacted. Since most resource sponsored coins are attached to outer markets on which those benefits are exchanged.

Let’s take, for example, precious stones or silver. If the awareness of the token grows, at that point financial specialists will exploit the disparity and money out the physical resource.

Exactly how the basic resource of the token is overseen and secured in this procedure it will keep on being of fundamental significance. Institutional and standard financial specialists will be attracted to those coins upheld by systematised activities for managing and stripping resources.

Read more on Mainstream cryptocurrency adoption

Challenges of tokenization and ABT

While the tokenization and asset-backed tokens of genuine resources come with a guarantee, there are some challenges to overcome. Financial motivation help solve some of these challenges, and organizations and governments take part in the goal of creating a strong foundation in this field. Here are some of the issues:

  • Regulatory vacuum — The fields of cryptocurrency, tokenization and asset-backed cryptocurrency
    are not well regulated. As such, they introduce certain risks to qualified investors and customers.
  • Legal enforce-ability of property rights — Does owning tokens and asset-backed cryptocurrency confer ownership over the corresponding asset? In the event that the asset is inexistent, who is liable? How does the owner recover damages?
  • Technical infrastructure — There is a need to improve security and safety standards to make sure that asset-backed cryptocurrency is connected to its assets in the real world.

Read more on Regulation of Cryptocurrency Around the World Report

Benefits and Perspectives of asset-backed tokens

By joining the upsides of blockchain and traditional venture instruments, tokenisation can affect exchanges and speculation. The advantages of tokenization and asset-backed cryptocurrency are various and can be outlined as pursues:

  • Improves liquidity of assets like real estate
  • Allows fractional ownership
  • Permits the diversification of risk by owning parts of several assets
  • Alleviates territorial and temporal barriers
  • Allows newer models for raising capital
  • Allows more control, and even the ability to choose the level of control over an investment with implemented digital democracy
  • Decreases the number of intermediaries, and therefore the amount of fees
  • Unlocks liquidity premium

Read more on How to earn free cryptocurrency (without investing or mining)

As the digital currency advertise keeps on advancing, develop, and expanding, asset-backed cryptocurrency and tokens will be the portal to more extensive applications.

The Economics of Cryptocurrencies

The Economics of Cryptocurrencies

Let’ explore some of the factors that affect the price movements of a cryptocurrency. We have identified the main factors which affect the cryptocurrency price (but there are many more other)

  • Supply & Demand
  • Utility
  • Market Sentiment
  • Mining Difficulty

Supply & Demand

Supply and demand is a fundamental factor that affects the price of a cryptocurrency (and the price of any type of market). Bitcoin is the most well-known, and therefore, the most sought-after cryptocurrency. With a circulating supply of 16.7 million coins, the number of bitcoins available is quite low when compared to altcoins.

Circulating supply of the top ten cryptocurrencies according to coinmarketcap
Source: Coinmarketcap

This low supply, when weighed against the staggering demand Bitcoin has seen in the past few months, is believed, by some, to be the reason for Bitcoin’s surge in price.

Utility

Utility = the usefulness of a cryptocurrency. The more useful a cryptocurrency is, the more likely it is to be perceived as valuable, and therefore, the more likely it is to be bought.

Let’s take Ethereum as an example! People believe it is useful because of the platform that it provides in allowing people to build decentralized applications on top of. This novel use of blockchain technology as a sort of app store, as opposed to a medium of exchange, has been perceived by some to be very useful. And so, Ethereum can be said to have high utility and therefore be seen as valuable.

Market Sentiment

As a cryptocurrency trader, it is likely that you will switch between multiple positions at a high frequency. Therefore, it becomes key that any position you take is well researched and has a positive market sentiment surrounding it.

Read more on Where Is the Cryptocurrency Industry Headed in 2019?

It is important to research any project you intend investing and to read recent articles on that cryptocurrency. If you invest in a cryptocurrency that has had no real coverage, it is likely that your position will stagnate, or even worse, to decline in value.

Getting a clear view of the sentiment surrounding a cryptocurrency allows you to filter the useless cryptocurrencies and focus on active projects capable of growth.

Mining Difficulty

Mining difficulty = a measure of how hard it is to be the next person that gets to add a block to the blockchain, and receive the reward for doing so.

Read more on Mining Cryptocurrency: Crypto Mining Business Model Used Worldwide

A lower mining difficulty indicates that a cryptocurrency is easy to mine; this results in an increase in the rate of supply, and therefore, downward pressure on its price.

Conversely, a higher mining difficulty suggests that a cryptocurrency is harder to mine. This results in supply growing at a slower rate, therefore resulting in upward pressure on the price.

Cryptocurrency Regulation Around the World Report

Cryptocurrency Regulation Around the World Report

This report surveys the legal and policy landscape surrounding cryptocurrency regulation around the world. This report covers 130 countries as well as some regional organizations that have issued laws or policies on the subject.

After analysing how various jurisdictions, it would be possible to identify emerging patterns, as this report is trying to describe. The country surveys are also organized regionally to allow for region-specific comparisons.

The terminology used to describe cryptocurrency

One first aspect the report has revealed is the variety and fluidity of the terminology used to describe cryptocurrency.

Read more on The differences between cryptocurrency coins and tokens

Some of the terms used by countries to reference cryptocurrency include: digital currency (Argentina, Thailand, and Australia), virtual commodity (Canada, China, Taiwan), crypto-token (Germany), payment token (Switzerland), cyber currency (Italy and Lebanon), electronic currency (Colombia and Lebanon), and virtual asset (Honduras and Mexico).

Cryptocurrency regulation: Cryptocurrency warnings and approach

One common action was identified across the surveyed jurisdictions: the government-issued notices about the pitfalls of investing in the cryptocurrency markets.  Such warnings, mostly issued by central banks, are designed to educate people about the difference between actual currencies, which are issued and guaranteed by the state, and cryptocurrencies, which are not.

Most government warnings include the following: the investment risk resulting from the high volatility, many of the organizations that facilitate such transactions are unregulated, investing is done as a personal risk and some even add that cryptocurrency was created for illegal activities, such as money laundering and terrorism.

Read more on What is cryptocurrency and why do we need it?

Some of the countries surveyed go beyond simply warning the public and have expanded their laws on money laundering, counterterrorism, and organized crimes to include cryptocurrency markets, and require banks and other financial institutions to ban or limit any type of activity that cannot be tolerated under such laws.

For instance, Australia, Canada, and the Isle of Man recently enacted laws to bring cryptocurrency transactions and institutions that facilitate them under the ambit of money laundering and counter-terrorist financing laws.

Some countries (Algeria, Bolivia, Morocco, Nepal, Pakistan, and Vietnam) ban any and all activities involving cryptocurrencies. Qatar and Bahrain have a slightly different approach in that they forbid their citizens from engaging in any kind of activities involving cryptocurrencies locally but allow citizens to do so outside their borders.

Other countries are indirectly imposing restrictions, by restricting cryptocurrency transactions of the financial institutions (Bangladesh, Iran, Thailand, Lithuania, Lesotho, China, and Colombia).

Cryptocurrency regulation: ICOs

Cryptocurrency regulation is not the only concern for some. Only a limited number of countries surveyed regulate initial coin offerings (ICOs). Some of these countries ban ICOs altogether (mainly China, Macau, and Pakistan), while most tend to focus on regulating them.

For the rest of the countries that do address ICOs, its regulations depend on how an ICO is categorized. For instance, in New Zealand,  particular obligations may apply depending on whether the token offered is categorized as a debt security, equity security, managed investment product, or derivative.  In the Netherlands, the rules applicable to a specific ICO depend on whether the token offered is considered a security or a unit in a collective investment, an assessment made on a case-by-case basis.

Read more on How to earn free cryptocurrency (without investing or mining)

Cryptocurrency regulation: Blockchain technology

Some of the jurisdiction surveyed for this report, while not recognizing cryptocurrencies as legal tender, see potential in the blockchain technology behind it and are developing a cryptocurrency-friendly regulatory regime as a means to attract investment in technology companies that excel in this sector. In this class are countries like Spain, Belarus, the Cayman Islands, and Luxemburg.

Read more on Blockchain technology used in non-cryptocurrency applications

Some jurisdictions are seeking to develop their own system of cryptocurrencies.  This category includes a diverse list of countries, such as the Marshall Islands, Venezuela, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) member states, and Lithuania.

Belgium, South Africa, and the United Kingdom stated that the size of the cryptocurrency market is too small to be cause for sufficient concern to warrant regulation but have issued warnings to the public about the pitfalls of such investments.

Cryptocurrency regulation: Cryptocurrency taxation

The challenge appears to be how to categorize cryptocurrencies and the specific activities involving them for purposes of taxation.

Transactions must first get classified either as income or capital gains to determine the applicable type of tax.

Read more on Top countries where cryptocurrency is legal

The surveyed countries have categorized cryptocurrencies differently for tax purposes, as illustrated by the following examples:

Israel taxed as asset
Bulgaria taxed as financial asset
Switzerland taxed as foreign currency
Argentina & Spain   subject to income tax
Denmark subject to income tax and losses are deductible
United Kingdom: corporations pay corporate tax, unincorporated businesses pay income tax, individuals pay capital gains tax

Mainly due to a 2015 decision of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), gains in cryptocurrency investments are not subject to value added tax in the European Union Member States.

Cryptocurrency mining is exempt from taxation in most surveyed countries. However, in Russia mining that exceeds a certain energy consumption threshold is taxable.

Cryptocurrency regulation: Cryptocurrency payments

In a small number of jurisdictions, cryptocurrency regulation permits cryptocurrencies as a means of payment.

Read more on What Can You Buy Using Cryptocurrency?

In the Swiss Cantons of Zug and a municipality within Ticino, cryptocurrencies are accepted as a means of payment even by government agencies. The Isle of Man and Mexico also permit the use of cryptocurrencies as a means of payment along with their national currency.  Much like governments around the world that fund various projects by selling government bonds, the government of Antigua and Barbuda allows the funding of projects and charities through government-supported ICOs.

Mining Cryptocurrency: Crypto Mining Business Model Used Worldwide

Mining Cryptocurrency: Crypto Mining Business Model Used Worldwide

The most popular way to get into crypto is to start mining crypto. There are a few other ways in which you can earn crypto without spending any fiat money, but serious money is made by mining cryptocurrency.

Mining cryptocurrency like Bitcoin is an automatic process, a decentralized mechanism that creates Bitcoin out of thin air to provide rewards to miners for processing transactions. The result: a booming business in mining.

All you need to get into the business of mining cryptocurrency is a rack of high-speed computers and access to electricity anywhere in the world and you can essentially create cryptocurrency, simply by running free software.

Crypto Mining Business Model #1: Legal, Competitive Mining

In the early days of crypto, mining was a business for small-time entrepreneurs. The business soon became increasingly competitive, as miners purchased massively powerful computers while scaling up their operations to remain profitable.

Risks seemed low, as the original Bitcoin software was supposed to account for falling prices, making it easier to mine as the number of miners remaining in the game dropped, thus ensuring that there would always be enough miners to process all the transactions.

Then the Bitcoin crash came, severely limiting the ability for miners to churn out crypto while still making a profit. As it turns out, inefficiencies in the mining algorithm, combined with market pressure on the transaction fees that were supposed to partially compensate miners, has led to a squeeze on the ability for anyone to mine at a profit.

Legal crypto mining using electricity at market rates is now becoming increasingly unfeasible, even in places like Iceland, which have exceptionally low electricity rates combined with temperatures conducive for data centres filled with heat-generating computers.

Crypto Mining Business Model #2: Subsidized Electricity Mining

In Washington State, hydroelectric power generates far more juice than locals can consume, thus attracting a booming business in crypto mining.

“The region’s five huge hydroelectric dams, all owned by public utility districts, generate nearly six times as much power as the region’s residents and businesses can use,”

Explains Politico journalist Paul Roberts. “Most of the surplus is exported, at high prices, to markets like Seattle or Los Angeles, which allows the utilities to sell power locally at well below its cost of production.”

By 2015, however, the Washington Bitcoin mining craze had run its course. “Margins grew so thin—and, in fact, occasionally went negative—that miners had to spend their coins as soon as they mined them to pay their power bills,” Roberts adds.

If not Washington, then, what about Iran? “I come across some very interesting cases,” notes Mohsen Rajabi, an Iranian blockchain entrepreneur. “I recently set up a rig for a middle-aged customer who was not tech-savvy at all and had simply heard of mining and its potential profits. He wanted to start with ten devices installed at his factory because it can legally use extremely cheap industrial electricity.”

Crypto Mining Business Model #3: Steal Electricity

The electricity is the greatest cost of the mining business. If you can manage to cut that out, that chances of making a profit increase at once. In the early days of Bitcoin, college kids would use the university electricity to power their rigs from their dorm.

Today, in contrast, stealing electricity is serious business. “A Shanxi Datong [China] man named Xu Xinghua stole power from the poles near the West Second Plant of the Kouquan Railway, which was borrowed from November to December 2017,” reports Liu Yulin, writing in Chinese for The Paper.

“The coin ‘mining machine’ and three electric fans were operated for 24 hours,” she continues. “Xu Xinghua mined a total of 3.2 bitcoins, earning 120,000 yuan [$17,700], and the electricity generated by the stolen electricity was 104,000 [$15,340] yuan.”

What happened to the thief? “Xu Xinghua was sentenced to three years and six months in prison for committing theft and was fined 100,000 yuan [$14,750],” she reports. He also had to reimburse the electric company for the stolen power and forfeit his equipment.

This story is one of many, notable merely for the fact that the perpetrator was caught and the story appeared in the local paper. Many more instances are sure to be out there, as yet unreported.

Another popular, if potentially unintentional, way to steal electricity: set up a mining operation, take the profits, and then go out of business.

This is the story of one of the Washington State mining companies. “U.S.-based bitcoin mining firm Giga Watt has declared bankruptcy with millions still owed to creditors,” writes Yogita Khatri for Coindesk. “Creditors include the utilities provider in its Douglas County [Washington] base, having a claim of over $310,000, and electricity provider Neppel Electric, which is owed almost half a million dollars.”

One silver lining: there may be a possibility these stiffed utilities will eventually get some of their money back, as Giga Watt raised about $22 million in its ICO – and it’s possible the scammers were unable to spend or secret away all of the proceeds before the bankruptcy shut them down.

Crypto Mining Business Model #4: Cryptojacking

Illicit cryptocurrency mining (known as cryptojacking), has surpassed ransomware as the most popular form of cybercrime targeting enterprises.

Cryptojacking means introducing crypto mining software onto a target victim’s computer without their knowledge. The software starts generating crypto for the hacker while stealing processing power and electricity from the victim.

The cryptojacking problem, in fact, is much worse than it was when I wrote my article Top Cyberthreat Of 2018: Illicit Cryptomining in March 2018.

“Despite the volatility in the value of various cryptocurrencies, the trend of illicit cryptocurrency mining activity among cybercriminals shows no signs of abating,” according to David Liebenberg, senior threat analyst at Cisco Talos.

One of the reasons why the cryptojacking problem is getting worse is because the malware is getting better. One such package: Rocke. “Talos assesses with high confidence that Rocke will continue to leverage Git repositories to download and execute illicit mining onto victim machines,” continues Liebenberg.

Git repositories are where most of today’s enterprise software developers store and manage their source code – but such repositories are not Rocke’s creators’ only target. “It is interesting to note that they are expanding their toolset to include browser-based miners, difficult-to-detect trojans, and the Cobalt Strike malware [malware that leverages Cobalt Strike penetration testing software].”

Crypto Mining Business Model #5: Evading Sanctions

Another cryptocurrency mining business model is to evade sanctions.

For example, a pair of Iranian Bitcoin miners tried to take advantage of their local USD exchange rate: “At the time we bought the mining device, the rate of the US dollar in Iran was still quite high, so we figured we would make about $90 to $100 a month,” explains Ali Hosseini, an Iranian miner. “The cost of electricity is relatively low in Iran, so the math seemed viable.”

Hosseini’s cousin also spoke up. “Foreign exchange rates and Bitcoin prices have fallen and our profits have been slashed, but we’re not seeing losses yet,” says Pedram Ghasemi, another Iranian miner. “According to my calculations, the US dollar must drop below 110,000 Rials [about $2.60] and Bitcoin must be down to $2,000 for us to really lose.”

Another example is North Korea. Priscilla Moriuchi, a former top National Security Agency official and now director of strategic threat development at Recorded Future, estimates that North Korea may have earned up to $200 million in 2017 mining crypto.

How, then, would North Korea turn that crypto into hard currency? “North Korea has such extensive criminal networks that have been well-established for decades to facilitate illegal activities,” Moriuchi says. “If Pyongyang were able to cash out into physical currency, it would be relatively easy for them to move that currency back into North Korea and to buy things with the physical currency. I would bet that these coins are being turned into something — currency or physical goods — that are supporting North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile program.”

Crypto Mining Business Model #6: Mining at a Loss

This doesn’t come out as a rational business model, unless ensuring that crypto transactions can be completed is your primary motivation.

We know that crypto is (or at least use to be) essential to the operation of the Darknet. Many illegal businesses and organized crime syndicates depend on the successful exchange of crypto to move their contraband.

Should the value of Bitcoin or any other crypto drop to the point that no one could make money mining it, then such syndicates would likely step in to fill the void – mining at a loss to keep the crypto running.

For all the crypto fanatics out there, therefore, there is a reason to take heart – there’s no way crypto values will ever drop far enough for mining to cease. Organized crime wouldn’t let that happen.

Blockchain: How A 51% Attack Works (double spend attack)

Blockchain: How A 51% Attack Works (double spend attack)

Let’s give a simple example to illustrate how a 51% attack works (double spend attack):

You spend 10 Bitcoin on a luxurious car. The car gets delivered a few days later, and the Bitcoins are transferred from you to the car company. By performing a 51% attack on the Bitcoin blockchain, you can now try to reverse this Bitcoin transfer. If you succeed, you will possess both the luxurious car and the Bitcoins, allowing you to spend those Bitcoins again.

Before explaining how this can happen, you should be acquainted with the blockchain mining process and technology.

51% Blockchain Attack (double spend attack) Definition

The ability of someone controlling a majority of network hash rate to revise transaction history and prevent new transactions from confirming.

What does this mean?

A 51% attack or double-spend attack is a miner or group of miners on a blockchain trying to spend their crypto’s on that blockchain twice. They try to ‘double spend’ them, hence the name. The goal of this isn’t always to double spend crypto’s, but more often to cast discredit over a certain crypto or blockchain by affecting its integrity.

Why can a 51% blockchain attack theoretically work?

As we have banks and the states central institution, the blockchain governs using a distributed ledger, where it can store all kind of information, like transactional data, in the case of cryptocurrency. That is why we call blockchains to be decentralised.

The protocol of the Bitcoin blockchain is based on democracy, meaning that the majority of the participants (miners) on the network will get to decide what version of the blockchain represents the truth.

How does a 51% PoW attack work?

Each transaction sent by a bitcoin owner is put into a pool of unconfirmed transactions. The miners select the transactions which will be part of the block. The miners need to find the solution to a very difficult mathematical problem (using computational power) to be able to add this block to the blockchain. This is the process of hashing.

Of course, the bigger the computational power of a miner, the better the chances are for him to be the first to find a solution. When a miner finds a solution, it will be broadcasted (along with their block) to the other miners and they will only verify it if all transactions inside the block are valid according to the existing record of transactions on the blockchain.

Note that even a corrupted miner can never create a transaction for someone else because they would need the digital signature of that person in order to do that (their private key). Sending Bitcoin from someone else’s account is therefore simply impossible without access to the corresponding private key.

How does a 51% blockchain attack start? With a corrupt miner!

A corrupt miner will try to reverse transactions. Why is a miner called malicious? Because when a miner finds a solution, it is supposed to be broadcasted to all other miners so that they can verify it whereafter the block is added to the blockchain (the miners reach consensus). a corrupt miner can create his own version of the blockchain by not broadcasting the solutions of his blocks to the rest of the network. There are now two versions of the blockchain.

The corrupted miner is now working on his own version of that blockchain and is not broadcasting it to the rest of the network. The rest of the network doesn’t pick up on this chain, because it hasn’t been broadcasted. It is isolated of the rest of the network.

The corrupted miner can now spend all his Bitcoins on the truthful version of the blockchain, the one that all the other miners are working on. On the truthful blockchain, his Bitcoins are now spent. Meanwhile, he does not include these transactions on his isolated version of the blockchain. On his isolated version of the blockchain, he still has those Bitcoins.

Meanwhile, he is still picking up blocks and he verifies them all by himself on his isolated version of the blockchain. This is where all trouble starts… The blockchain is programmed to follow a model of democratic governance (the majority).

The blockchain does this by always following the longest chain, after all, the majority of the miners add blocks to their version of the blockchain faster than the rest of the network (longest chain = majority). This is how the blockchain determines which version of its chain is the truth, and in turn what all balances of wallets are based on. A race has now started. Whoever has the most hashing power will add blocks to their version of the chain faster.

The corrupted miner will now try to add blocks to his isolated blockchain faster than the other miners add blocks to their blockchain (the truthful one). As soon as the corrupted miner creates a longer blockchain, he suddenly broadcasts this version of the blockchain to the rest of the network. The rest of the network will now detect that this (corrupt) version of the blockchain is actually longer than the one they were working on, and the protocol forces them to switch to this chain.
The corrupted blockchain is now considered the truthful blockchain, and all transactions that are not included on this chain will be reversed immediately. The attacker has spent his Bitcoins on a Lamborghini before, but this transaction was not included in his stealth chain, the chain that is now in control, and so he is now once again in control of those Bitcoins. He is able to spend them again.

This is a double-spend attack. It is commonly referred to as a 51% attack because the malicious miner will require more hashing power than the rest of the network combined (thus 51% of the hashing power) in order to add blocks to his version of the blockchain faster, eventually allowing him to build a longer chain.

And just for the fun of it, check the cost of the Proof-of-Work 51% Attack for some top cryptocurrencies.

What Can You Buy Using Cryptocurrency?

What Can You Buy Using Cryptocurrency?

Rumours of merchants accepting Bitcoin have been circulating for years. After all, everyone knows at least one-foot soldier who spreads the good word of Satoshi wherever they can find a listening ear.

So then, what can you actually buy with cryptocurrency? If you’re not counting on holding for that Lambo anytime soon, let’s see what you can get for a few satoshis.

Flights and hotels

Due to the explosive growth of the cryptocurrency ecosystem in the past nine years, it is now possible to travel the world by spending cryptocurrency.

Established travel agents such as CheapAir, Destinia  Expedia and Surf Air accept bitcoin as a payment method to book flights, car rentals, and hotels and for those who prefer to stay in an apartment when travelling can book accommodation using bitcoin (BTC) or ether (ETH) on CryptoCribs.

The growth of the bitcoin ATM market also means travellers are now able to convert their cryptocurrency into local currency in most major cities around the world.

Movies, games and app-based services

Microsoft dipped its toes in the waters back in 2014, when it started accepting Bitcoin for online game and app purchases on its Windows and Xbox online stores. After a lover’s quarrel over volatility last year, the tech powerhouse stalled payments but has since rekindled the flame and picked up where it left off. While the tech giant is yet to accept BTC across the board, their support carries some serious weight.

While you won’t be getting the latest Windows from Microsoft, there’s always a back door – Newegg will proudly sell PCs, hardware, software, and an arsenal of miscellaneous equipment for bitcoins. Whether you’re in the market for a mining motherboard or a fly-fishing rod, Newegg seems to have it.

Some musicians (Bjork, Imogen Heep) will let you download their music in exchange for cryptocurrency.

Did you know you can Play blockchain games for free and win cryptocurrency?

Online Services

Your classic offline businesses are usually the last to jump on the bandwagon, while traditionally web-based businesses are quicker to catch on to tech trends.

Web services seem to be leading the pack, and you can just about create an entire website using Bitcoin. First, grab yourself a domain name on Namecheap, and if you won’t settle for their hosting package, try HostWindsGlowHost or HawkHost.

Once you’ve laid out the bones for your new site you’ll want a fresh installation of WordPress, where you can lock down a sexy theme and plugins galore – all purchased using Bitcoin, naturally. If all of this sounds a bit too much, you can jump the queue over on Reddit and launch your project as a premium feature.

Bitcoins also jangle around the darker corners of the world wide web, where romance comes at a price. There’s SuicideGirls, an eerily named “adult” community, or if you’d rather do things the old-fashioned way jump on OKCupid for some online dating action – both accept Bitcoin as payment for membership.

Read more on How blockchain technology is used in non-cryptocurrency applications.

Furniture

Need to furnish your house or buy a special present for someone? Overstock was one of the first big retailers to start accepting bitcoin, back in 2014, and its founder – Patrick Byrne – is still one of the technology’s most active proponents.

Gold

Fancy some gold? Sharps PixleyAPMEX and JM Bullion will take bitcoin off your hands in exchange for bullion.

Food

The first Bitcoin transaction ever recorded was for pizza, and apparently, the novelty never wore off. Accepting bitcoin for pizza since 2013, Pizzaforcoins is a third-party intermediary that will happily take your BTC and convert that into doughy, cheesy goodness made by your vendor of choice. (If you live in the US.)

If you’ve got a hankering for something less greasy, there’s a chance your local Subway will convert your crypto-assets into a foot-long classic. One punter traded 0.04 BTC for a Chicken Bacon Ranch 4 years ago- that said, BTC payments don’t seem to be a franchise-wide policy (being left to the discretion of individual store owners).

School

If it’s knowledge you’re hungry for, several private and public universities, as well as a couple of New York preschools, accept bitcoin. I bet you would have never guessed what you can buy using cryptocurrency.

Legal and accounting

Some legal and accounting firms also accept payment for their services in the cryptocurrency.

Presents

If you want to use bitcoin to buy presents, the most obvious solution is gift cards, via Gyft or eGifter. The recipient will then be able to spend the gift card at one of a wide range of retailers.

Charities

Whether you’re looking to bolster transparency with WikiLeaks, build clean water solutions in Sub-Saharan Africa with The Water Project, or SaveThe Children, the number of charities and nonprofits accepting Bitcoin is growing every day. Take your pick from art, entertainment, NGOs, open-source projects, activism, and even religion- you can find a full, up-to-date list on Bitcoin Wiki

Of course, you could always buy yourself some happiness by donating to one of the bitcoin-accepting charities or crowdfunding sites, such as BitHopeBitGive or Fidelity Charitable.

Search for offline shops

For a list of offline stores near you that accept bitcoin, check this list of resources to help you spend BTC away from the keyboard:

Where to Spend Bitcoins UK – An all-encompassing directory of shops, pubs, websites and places that accept Bitcoin as payment, complete with a map function.
Use Bitcoins – A directory platform listing 5,000 registered businesses that accept BTC.
CoinMap – An interactive map of worldwide businesses accepting Bitcoin.
Spendabit – A search engine to help you find a retailer for a specific good (that accepts BTC).

What can you buy using cryptocurrency? – Conclusion

Slowly but surely, merchants are warming to the idea of our old friend Bitcoin and slapping up their “Bitcoin Accepted Here” stickers with glee. That said, the process will certainly take some time, with the full force of FUD, regulation, and tech challenges all holding back your average Joe from seeing Bitcoin as a credible payment method.

Before spending, sometimes you also need to think about how to acquire it. Earning Bitcoins might seem like a daunting task if you leave out the option of buying Bitcoin. Check out some platforms which will help you earn free cryptocurrency and Bitcoin.

As an early adopter, sometimes you have to count the wins. While we are a long way off from BTC being as good as cash, there are some heavy hitters on this list that are bound to put the scent of FOMO in the air, jump-starting a mad scramble for competitors to join the crypto revolution.

Until that glorious day, your best bet is a Bitcoin debit card, which you can use just about anywhere that accepts regular old Visa. Try SpectroCoin, Uquid or Cryptopay, and you’ll be swiping and spending your satoshis like nobody’s business.