Cryptoassets: Season 3 – Episode 4 – Scammers on Apple’s App Store & The Beginning of bitcoin

Scammers: Apple’s App Store Compromised

So, it’s been probably a week + since I’ve done a podcast, but I’ve been monitoring a lot of news and it’s getting a little crazy in the crypto world.

Almost every week passes by and there are scams everywhere, which is why I’m telling people to hold back until regulations and other things are implemented to protect people who are actually investing.  For example, the Appstore (of course — on Apple), has a lot of fake apps that phish for users to scam them.  Face value it has a nice photo and great reviews, but again, all the reviews are fake and that’s why aesthetics always trump those who don’t know what they’re doing.

Because I love going over Bitcoin and everything about blockchain technology, I’m not encouraging anyone (who’s a beginner) to dive in a world that they could possibly be taken advance of.  It’s in the beginning stage, and there have been a number of victims who fall to “live” hackings by hackers around the world.  This is probably the biggest downside of bitcoin, because at anytime, virtual coins are unprotected and can be stolen.

Cryptography

Let’s just put it this way.  Every time we type in a password, pay with a credit card, or use WhatsApp, we are enjoying the benefits of cryptography.  This is implemented in the real world right now, but not in the crypto world, which is why so many people end up being scammed.

The other topics that are mentioned get into the technicalities of cryptography, which isn’t useful for “us” kind of people. It goes over blockchain, how it works and other variations of the system. So, time to get into the early years of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin’s Early Years

So, in the dawn of 2011, a software application was released that would make Bitcoin famous; but it was also the time that Bitcoin developed its dark reputation.

Silkroad

People would go so far to say it’s only a place to buy drugs, but this developed the dark/deep web even more.  Bitcoin was used as the main currency on the dark market, and it wasn’t only drugs, it was child slavery, all types of ammunition, hitmen.  You name it.  This is how it began.

This lead to the resurgence and life of bitcoin.  It drove bitcoin from a $10 price to a $30 price in just a week.  Two months later, it went from $30 – $230 in a month span.  There was a bailout of Cyprus that was associated with losses that citizens took on their bank account balances as the core driving point of why it spiked so high in a small amount of time.

While the spring of 2013 was notable, it was a preview of bitcoin’s grand opening to global attention.  This came six months later, in November of 2013, when increased demand for bitcoin in China along with interest from the U.S. Senate on the innovation led to a stratospheric ascent through $1,000 that grabbed international headlines.

Podcast