cryptocurrency – North Toronto Collegiate Institute

How did a lucky Buccaneers fan make thousands of dollars by attending a game?

by Cameron, Spencer & Nikola

At the Buccaneers vs. Bears game on October 24, 2021. Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady threw his 600th touchdown to wide receiver Mike Evans. Unaware of the significance of this pass, Evans handed the ball to a fan in the front row of the end zone. This proved to be a major mistake, which was corrected by Buccaneer staff and Brady. Besides the significance to Brady, the ball is estimated to be worth around $500,000. In exchange for the ball, Tom Brady gave the fan two signed jerseys, a signed helmet, a signed Evans jersey plus his game cleats, a $1,000 store credit at the Buccaneers team store, season tickets for two years, and on top of that, a Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that you can buy, sell, and trade, without an intermediary like a bank. The reason it is worth money is because we, as people, decide it’s value, similar to gold. Since it’s supply is limited to 21 million coins, and 18.8m have already been mined as of August 2021 (~90%), this creates a supply and demand issue. Given this lack of supply, many people expect it’s price to continue to grow as time goes on, especially as more big investors begin treating it as a digital gold to hedge against market volatility and inflation.

One Bitcoin is currently worth around $75,000 CAD, but that number could increase significantly. Over the past year, Bitcoin has increased by 200%, and since 6 years ago, a whopping 17,000%. Over the next 5 years, experts believe that Bitcoin will be worth around $320,000 CAD, roughly quadruple its current value. By 2030, a single coin is estimated to be worth $6,750,000.

Although Bitcoin has the potential to be worth an astronomical amount, it could also crash. It’s known to be a very volatile investment that has a track record of a lot of boom and bust cycles. As an example, between April and July, Bitcoin corrected more than 60%, and over the course of its 11-year existence, the coin has had 7 corrections greater than 50%. The repeated history of these negative turns prove that Bitcoin can make a turn for the worse at any time.

We asked Noah Yan which option he he would take in 10 years and he said “100% a Bitcoin. Although the football will probably be worth north of $1 million, I believe that because of the previous progress of bitcoin, it’s on track to be worth much more than the football.”

Although the risk of Bitcoin is high and the volatility surrounding it will be great, we believe that it will be worth more than Tom Brady’s 600th touchdown ball because of its successful past, and the predictions for the currency in the future.

Why are NFTs so popular?

by Santi & Ray

Non-fungible tokens, or better known as NFT’s, are crashing the market right now. Let’s figure out why. In the year 2012, the first official Non-fungible tokens or more commonly referred to as NFT’s were first made. These tokens are so valuable because they’re tokenized drawings.

So what are the origins of NFTs? NFTs are tokenized drawings that stockholders can purchase for various prices typically ranging from $1-$900, and even sometimes being worth a lot more. However these drawings are specific, see for many years art has been around and has been purchased. Art has been considered a thing ever since the year 30,000 BP and has been part of the market for not too much shorter. However with the internet on the rise and duplicating drawings being more common and easy, certain drawings and pieces of art lose their value as replicas look the same and that most original art pieces are stored away in art museums. With the internet you can buy these NFTs and purchase the drawings and have ownership of them meaning you can sell and purchase. However with all this being said we take a dive into why they all of a sudden have become popular despite art being existent for much longer.

With that being said we ask why are NFTs all of a sudden blowing up in popularity? The big reason why NFTs have blown up so suddenly is because of 2 things with the first being “CryptoKitties” and the second being human natural collecting instinct. So firstly what’re CryptoKitties? Originally CryptoKitties started out as a Canadian developed video game where you would earn money and buy kitties. However as time went on they then made the feature to spend real time money and make actual investments from within the game to buy these kittens at fluctuating prices.

This was such a hit that they then created their own market called Ethereum’s underlying blockchain network. This was such a hit that other digital artists decided they would make their own drawings and sell them on the market in mid 2021 which then led to NFTs blowing up in popularity and popularity to the point where it is at now. Now the second reason I pointed out is human natural collecting instinct. Research has shown that humans have a natural instinct to buy more than they need for example, sneaker heads won’t own only 1 pair of shoes, and designer fashion models won’t have only 1 of 2 outfits, they’ll have multiple ones making them feel the urge and instinct to own more than they need.

Another psychological comparison is food. Typically we (humans) only eat 3 meals a day and have a small meal throughout varying parts of the day, however when we make purchases we try to get as much as we need until we’re satisfied with the amount. The only difference is once you’ve eaten your food you have none left meaning you need to go back whereas wearing a pair of shoes once won’t take its toll on them.

In conclusion, NFTs have blown up in the past year or so for many different reasons. These can include having the feeling of owning something expensive, popularity, and even just collecting something and having ownership of it. With more and more people on the internet every single day, NFTs will continue to contribute to our daily spending and what we do on the internet with our money.

What is Bitcoin?

by Stone

Bitcoin surpasses all expectations by becoming the top crypto currency in the world and having people invest billions into it. Now you may be asking yourself, What is a Bitcoin? Well Bitcoin is a new currency that was created in 2009 by an unknown person using the alias Satoshi Nakamoto. Transactions are made with no middle men – meaning, no banks! Bitcoin can be used to book hotels on Expedia, shop for furniture on Overstock and buy Xbox games. But much of the hype is about getting rich by trading it. The price of bitcoin skyrocketed into the thousands in 2017.

Bitcoin is a great thing for high school students to start getting into, I in fact have a tiny amount of money into bitcoin and I find it quite fun watching bitcoin and watching my investment go up. Also, I think bitcoin is a great way to start learning more about crypto currency. It is very easy to understand and I think I have written everything the average person would need to know about bitcoin in the following paragraphs.

Bitcoins can be used to buy merchandise anonymously. In addition, international payments are easy and cheap because bitcoins are not tied to any country or subject to regulation. Small businesses may like them because there are no credit card fees. Some people just buy bitcoins as an investment, hoping that they’ll go up in value.

Bitcoins are stored in a “digital wallet,” which exists either in the cloud or on a user’s computer. The wallet is a kind of virtual bank account that allows users to send or receive bitcoins, pay for goods or save their money. Unlike bank accounts, bitcoin wallets are not insured by the FDIC.

No one knows what will become of bitcoin. It is mostly unregulated, but some countries like Japan, China and Australia have begun weighing regulations. Governments are concerned about taxation and their lack of control over the currency.

In fact, Elon Musk has just recently made it so you can purchase a Tesla with Bitcoin. Musk even added #bitcoin in his bio on Twitter recently, “I think bitcoin is really on the verge of getting broad acceptance by conventional finance people” Musk said.

Now one bitcoin is worth $74,138.23, bitcoin has gone up by $58,502.63 in the last 7 years. Although some of the richest people in the world still don’t believe in it like Warren Buffet, Warren says “crypto currencies don’t have any real value you can only sell it to someone else, you can’t do anything with it”.

Bitcoin?

What is crypto currency and should you invest in bitcoin

by Calixto

Bitcoin, I’m sure the word rings so many bells. A concept that in recent years has taken the internet by storm and has created a whole new wave of currency, Cryptocurrency. As I’m sure you have heard, Bitcoin is the largest most prominent cryptocurrency. Nonetheless, few know the history, how the currency works and if you should invest in it.

Put simply, Bitcoin is purely operated online and unlike government-issued currencies, it is operated by a decentralized authority. It is unregulated and very volatile.

Many would be skeptical about investing online, and in an online currency, mainly due to not trusting online security and the thought of their information or money being stolen. In reality, that is not the case as the technology and system that Bitcoin uses is very safe and virtually unhackable. The Bitcoin code is run in a collection of computers referred to as nodes.

These nodes are scattered all around the world and number in the thousands. This decentralizes the Bitcoin network making it very difficult to target. These nodes also house a specific type of database known as blockchain. Nodes and blockchain are key to making Bitcoin safe. Blockchain works in a way that stores data and transactions in boxes, or “blocks”. As Bitcoin transactions happen live, blocks are visibly filled with set transactions which are also constantly being verified for legitimacy. This way, no one can cheat the system. The transparency and sheer width of the network is what makes Bitcoin a safe online network.

As popularity in cryptocurrency and specifically Bitcoin grow, the recurring question raised is “Should I buy Bitcoin?”. The simple answer is, if you have the money, go for it. Though very volatile, over the last ten years Bitcoin has seen serious gains (300% annual returns in 2020) and many see it as the future of currency. Nevertheless, you should be prepared to see violent fluctuations in price. Through thick and thin Bitcoin is still considered by many investors to be a great asset to one’s portfolio.

New Frontier or another failure: Bitclout

by Tanush

Cryptocurrency has finally expanded into social media- and I’m not talking about crypto Twitter. Bitclout is the fresh new child of the crypto market, and it aims to combine the two things millennials love the most; social media and cryptocurrency.

Bitclout was released less than a month ago as a social media platform by anonymous blockchain users. According to its statement with Hypebeast last week, it allows users to “speculate on people and posts with real money, and it’s built from the ground up as its own custom blockchain”. Users are able to establish accounts to post images, share stories in a similar fashion to Twitter, a clear inspiration for the platform. Each account acts as its own NFT, and can be treated as its own coin. From there, other users can interact with the user and pay real money to invest in them, which boosts the price of the account. In essence, Bitclout commodifies your account into an NFT that you can profit from- depending on what you post.

Tony Wu, a pioneering junior investor notes the platform’s appeal. He suggests that his “early investments into people like Elon Musk have led to (him) making huge amounts of money”. He is currently in hold of several accounts that total to a portfolio worth over 10 thousand dollars. As the app is in its fledgling stages, early investment has seen massive returns due to the initial growth. The growth doesn’t appear to be slowing down either, as Diamondhand, the anonymous creator of Bitclout, reports legitimate foundations such as Jordan Belfort, Coinbase and Social Capital are backing Bitclout- adding to its own legitimacy as a platform.

But it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows for the newfound NFT. For one, Bitclout has created accounts for the top 15,000 users on Twitter, and commodifies their identities without their consent. Brandon Curtis, a victim of the auto-account system has filed a lawsuit against the platform for using his name and identity without his consent. Many also rallied arms on Twitter to point this out. Furthermore, it is unclear what power monetizing social media holds. As user prequelmemes on Bitclout points out, the capacity for “cancel culture” is heightened as money can be weaponized in a far worse manner than words. Techcrunch also points out that while investment may be easy, cashing out is not.

So, should you opt into Bitclout? Jordan Belfort was right when he said the answer is yes. If you have a decent knowledge of diverse investment and blockchain, then I would highly recommend creating an account and getting started. The site gives you an initial amount of coins, which is more than enough to get you started and grow- especially if you ride the early bird wave. If you feel comfortable enough to spend some money, then maybe dish out a little bit and practice investment through Bitclout.

Ultimately, the site is an enticing new twist on social media and investment, and should be watched by anyone interested in cryptocurrency. With a few hiccups regarding user information, it is fair to say that there is risk- but growth likely means that the platform will iron out its issues as times goes on. As for whether it’s a new frontier, only time- and money- will tell.

Resources

Dale, Brady, et al. “What Is BitClout? The Social Media Experiment Sparking Controversy on Twitter.” CoinDesk, 24 Mar. 2021, www.coindesk.com/what-is-bitclout-the-social-media-experiment-stoking-controversy-on-twitter.
Matney, Lucas. “Crypto Social Network BitClout Arrives with a Bevy of High-Profile Investors – and Skeptics.” TechCrunch, TechCrunch, 23 Mar. 2021, techcrunch.com/2021/03/22/crypto-social-network-bitclout-arrives-with-a-bevy-of-high-profile-investors-and-skeptics/.
Perper, Rosie. “BitClout Is the New Crypto Social Network That Lets You Bet on People’s Reputations.” HYPEBEAST, HYPEBEAST, 2 Apr. 2021, hypebeast.com/2021/4/what-is-bitclout-crypto-social-network-buy-trade-creator-coins.