On June 23 , the news that UK citizens had decided to choose to say goodbye to the European Union came as a surprise to everyone . The famous Brexit caught off guard not only Europeans but also to markets, sparking a stock market panic situation .
Volatility soared and investors fled towards that which never fails them . And is that in a difficult market situation , such as gold , nickel , coffee or sugar become shelter where it will stop a lot of capital when there are problems in equity values.
Within these values , fund managers and investment brokers gambled on assets such as German bunds and US , gold and liquidity , ie , keeping money in cash waiting to return confidence . In other words , under the mattress . It is what is known in financial jargon as the investment strategy fly to quality , which occurs when there is much uncertainty in the market.
But all of them were joined last June 23 a new player using a football metaphor , surprised friends and strangers to play one on one with the big boys in his first major announcement. The bitcoin , hitherto despised by some and others became , for the first time in an active shelter and behaved in a manner similar to that made gold or the aforementioned bonds.
But what is BitCoin ? The answer is , a priori, simple: it is a virtual currency that allows us to make payments through the network. But how does it work? That's where things start to get complicated . BitCoin operates with an electronic code and is independent of the central banks and any international regulations.
Another caracrerísticas BitCoin is that transactions are made from user to user , without any intermediaries involved. In addition , through the exchange we can exchange BitCoin and get other currencies with them.
Transactions and transactions with BitCoin are public and can be checked in the register of free access where they are stored , but yes, it is impossible to know the identity of the owners, a fact that critics have used to accuse the cryptocurrency of mechanism for laundering drug trafficking and various illegal activities.
However, it seems that investors , when the truth , have given their approval to the virtual currency, for in the midst of the financial storm that was the morning that the final results of the referendum met they decided to entrust their capital to this asset still looked askance called BitCoin .