What is BitCoin and where to buy BTC in the Philippines?

Smart’s Smartload, Globe’s Gcash, Mobile legend’s Diamonds, Ragnarok’s Zeny and many more. These are all examples of a digital currency. They are backed by the companies that made them in exchange of our money for their product of service. What if I told you, there’s a digital currency that is not company specific? That you can convert and spend to pay for your electricity, water, internet, etc? Best of all, its value appreciates in time just like your normal stocks.

What is a Bitcoin?

A Bitcoin (BTC) is a digital currency, an electronic money, an internet money. It is considered as the 21st century alternative to a regular bank. You may not see or touch it like a normal one hundred peso bill but it is there.

A skeptic may argue, money is backed by the government, BSP in particular, who does that for Bitcoin?

Simple answer? YOU.

Unlike peso, dollars, euros, or yen, Bitcoin is considered a decentralized currency. Meaning, the value of your balance is not set by the BSP, but by supply and demand of the global market. Mas maraming investor ang bumibili, mas tumataas ang presyo.

There are 3 ways to earn Bitcoins:

1. Pay or receive payments in Bitcoins
2. Trading just like what you do in Stocks
3. Mining

To date, there are a number of websites like WordPress, Reddit, NameCheap that began accepting Bitcoins as payment. This is not unusual for websites to take the early plunge and begin accepting Bitcoin being called as the currency of the internet.

Also, like any other commodity, the value of Bitcoin is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. And that value has fluctuated pretty wildly in the past couple of years. In April of 2011, the value of 1 Bitcoin was 75 cents. In May of 2017, that value reached as high as $2,800 with more than $40B market cap.

Bitcoin chart from https://99bitcoins.com/price-chart-history/

Where to buy bitcoin?

Unfortunately, there are only limited ways on where to buy BTC.

I first bought my bitcoin from Coins.ph for PHP 10,000 in exchange for 0.12464342 BTC last month. Registration is free and when you use our link, you’ll receive extra PHP 50.00 to spend.

For those asking for step by step guide on how to buy BTC in coins.ph, stay tuned for our next post.