Recently, I've been interested in what people who have no affiliation with cryptocurrency, think about it. Then tried to bust those myths.
Myth #1:
"P1: Isn't it illegal?
P2: No, but it should be"
Crypto in its self is not illegal and in fact very beneficial. From providing banking services to allowing content creators to get paid easier, crypto provides a service that is missing. The way this myth get's spread around is by people hearing about the Silk Road and other dark web services and immediately relating it to bitcoin or crypto. Bitcoin is actually an extremely public way of transacting, more than cash.
TL;DR: NO
Myth #2:
"BITCOIN WAS HACKED"
No, bitcoin can NOT be hacked. It is not a business, has no CEO and the code can only be changed with 51% of the miners (people who confirm transactions) agreeing. It is, as far as we know, unhackable and your coins can only be taken if the criminal knows your bitcoin address or you are keeping them in a public exchange, which shows it's public keys. I say criminal because if you steal someone's coins and think you won't be caught, chances are, you might. DON'T BE GREEDY AND TAKE PEOPLES COINS.
TL;DR Unless you show your private key, you coins can't be hacked.
Myth #3:
"Can't someone just guess my private key and take my coins?"
Firstly, bitcoin addresses are 64 characters and each digit has a character of 0-9 or A-F. They look like this (no there are no coins here): L4q9BY5WXDA2GM7aSJUmTai61wfh7p7BzoUwMYsvx6r8wFQAUtnq. If someone were to use a computer to try and figure out the key, technically it would be possible, but it would take longer than finding your credit card number and chances are, it would'nt be a lot of bitcoin as most addresses hold next to nothing. The odds of correctly guessing a BTC address is 1:115,792,089,237,316,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, harder than winning the lottery, and getting drafted by the NBA.
Thanks for reading! And remember, do not share your private key with anyone, not even if they claim to be Donald Trump on twitter!