When joe Smith, the head of global markets at the investment bank J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., first learned of Bitcoin back in 2014, he had no idea what it was.
But he soon became convinced it could be a game-changer, and he invested in a handful of other cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum and Ripple.
“The idea was that it was the world’s first completely decentralized digital currency, and it was really the first crypto currency that was going to be adopted as a payment method,” he told Business Insider in an interview.
Smith said he bought roughly $5,000 worth of Bitcoin in 2013.
“The amount that I invested in was $2,000.”
The price soared in the months following, but by then it was too late.
Smith now trades bitcoin for a few other cryptocurrencies.
The price of the digital currency has doubled since the start of 2017, to around $1,100.
But with Bitcoin prices hovering around $500 and Ethereum trading at around $800, Smith says he has seen a dramatic drop in the value of the two.
“I was very surprised to see that the price of Bitcoin had dropped so much,” he said.
He said it took him “a couple of weeks” to realize it was “a bubble.”
Smith said that when he began to hear about the currency, it was as if it had been invented.
“There was no way to explain the phenomenon to myself,” he recalled.
“It was just, ‘Oh, yeah, I’ve heard about it.'”
Bitcoin is an online currency that operates entirely on the blockchain, a computer program that stores and manages the records of transactions in a public ledger called a “blockchain.”
The blockchain is not a physical place where data is stored, and unlike digital currency systems like the internet, the blockchain is designed to remain anonymous.
But because of Bitcoin’s ability to remain untraceable and untraceably tracked, it’s become an increasingly popular way for individuals to buy, sell, and store digital goods.
The cryptocurrency is also seen as a potential alternative to traditional currencies like the dollar or the euro, because it’s decentralized and the digital transactions are “digital gold,” as the currency is called.
The value of a bitcoin is tied to the number of other bitcoins in circulation.
The more bitcoins are in circulation, the more valuable they are.
Because of this, it is often used to make money transfers, buy goods and services online, and buy drugs online.
“This is the most important thing about bitcoin,” Smith said.
“You have this untraceability that makes it extremely appealing.”
The idea of a digital currency that has no physical place to be found, but is used as a medium of exchange and a way to pay for goods and products is what inspired Smith to start trading it.
It’s also what inspired him to start a Bitcoin ATM, a business that sells Bitcoin-denominated debit cards for businesses.
“When you think about it, bitcoin has a very similar appeal to fiat currency,” Smith explained.
“If you buy something with fiat money, it goes through the central bank.
With bitcoin, you don’t even have a central bank, you have the blockchain.
And if there’s a problem, the network, or the blockchain itself, can solve it.”
In 2017, Smith was among the first people to receive an ATM card that could be used to buy and sell Bitcoin.
“As soon as I saw the card, I immediately thought, ‘This is going to change the way I buy stuff in the future,'” Smith told Business Insights.
“And then I thought, this is really exciting.”
Smith started using the card to buy Bitcoin and sell it to other people in the cryptocurrency space.
In early 2018, he started buying and selling Bitcoin with other people.
He also started selling Bitcoins to people who needed the currency in order to get a loan, or pay bills.
The process of selling and buying Bitcoin is a little like buying and investing with a stock, Smith said, but it takes a bit of time to get things going.
“Once I have it, I can sell it for cash, and the cash can be used as collateral in a loan or a purchase,” Smith told BI.
The money can be spent in the same year it was bought.” “
That’s the beauty of Bitcoin.
The money can be spent in the same year it was bought.”
Smith and other traders also use the Bitcoin ATM card to trade other cryptocurrencies and to buy things in the digital space.
But Smith said the ATM card is not the only way to trade Bitcoins.
“A lot of people who are into the Bitcoin space use the ATMs to trade for physical gold,” he explained.
For example, people who like to buy gold with Bitcoin might buy an ATM card to send the money to an ATMs in a foreign country and buy gold there, he said, adding