Hello,
I am fairly new to Steemit and still trying to figure all of this out.
This post relates to my journey into the bitcoin/blockchain space and where it began. In July of 2013, I began hearing about bitcoin from various tech forums and websites. Online the word bitcoin would show up randomly and then disappear for a while. I had heard about a bitcoin wallet and I was doing some research on it. I wanted to figure out how to get a wallet and be able to use it - because that is what I had learned.
Around the end of 2013, I had started to hear about Mt. Gox. At the time, Mt. Gox had over 70% of all the wallets worldwide. Everyone else seemed to be using it so I figured it must be OK. I learned that you could purchase bitcoins and then you would have to hold them in your wallet. What I didn't realize at the time is that Mt. Gox was both an Exchange AND a hosted wallet company.
History tells us that you should not keep your bitcoins stored in an exchange. Its basically a hosted wallet and a tempting target for hackers everywhere. No one told me this. Luckily for me, I couldn't figure out how to get a wallet on Mt. Gox ... otherwise I would have been one of many victims that would lose their coins to gox.
Since 2013, there have been a lot of exchanges that have fallen. There are many different articles of hacks that have happened. But still people fail to realize the dangers that are out there.
There have been a lot of scams as well. I have started tracking a lot of them on my website. I have spent a lot of time doing research and also talking with other people new to bitcoin so that they can learn more about how it works and what dangers there are out there.
I am fascinated by - not just bitcoin - but also by blockchain technology. I hope to be able to use my knowledge about this new tech, but have not yet found out what I'm going to do. There are a list of projects I'm starting up. If you are interested in hearing more about them, just leave a comment or send me an email
Take care and be safe out there ...