Have you ever thought you absolutely couldn’t do something—like achieving a challenging yoga pose or presenting in front of hundreds of other bankers—and then when you go to try it you realize, “Oh, that’s all?” That’s what I used to think about cryptocurrency and Bitcoin.
That’s also what my female friends thought about cryptocurrency up until recently. A few weeks ago, I hopped on a virtual happy hour with a few of them. I’m fully bragging here, but I have really smart successful female friends across the nation. And as we popped our bubbly, we started talking about Bitcoin. They were seeing Quontic in the news for our Bitcoin Rewards Checking account, and were hungry for a peer to explain it in a safe space where they could really ask questions and learn.
I 100% get the need for that safe learning space—before I started educating myself on Bitcoin, it was intimidating. On top of that, I thought the only people who were into crypto were the stereotypical computer nerds—gamer guys who I had nothing in common with.
But it turned out, that’s not true. Bitcoin is not a boys’ club. In fact, we are all equal around the crypto table. There is no barrier to entry, no fancy diploma needed. I don’t need to be in a club, pay a monthly fee, be part of a hedge fund, or have a wealth manager that has access to it. We all have access to the same information on crypto and everyone, no matter your gender, race, class, etc., has equal access to the data and exchanges. I feel empowered that I can understand it and have a voice on it based on the information available to me on the web.
This isn’t just me; Women around the world are noticing. 43% of investors interested in Bitcoin are women. Just last year, the number of female users grew between 22% and 160% on the majority of top crypto exchanges, according to this cointelegraph article.
Especially in the last year, Bitcoin has morphed into something different, and something I am genuinely interested in. This transformation in the industry made me want to encourage other people—especially other women—to think about Bitcoin, listen to the podcasts and audiobooks about it, read blogs like this, and follow Bitcoin news. The more and more you’re exposed to it, the less intimidating it is. I’m not a financial advisor and I’m not advising on how you invest your money, but if you want to be educated about Bitcoin, you can start there.
So I gave my friends the most succinct explanation of Bitcoin I could muster up. Bitcoin is digital money! It was created in 2009 by an anonymous computer programmer or group of programmers known as Satoshi Nakamoto in order to create a democratized new form of digital currency that was outside the control of any person, group, or government. Bitcoin can be used as a digital means of payment or as a storer of wealth (like a hedge against currency devaluations that typically follow huge money supply increases). Every transaction must first be verified by other computers on the network and then recorded in a public list known as the blockchain or distributed ledger. The value proposition behind Bitcoin, in short, is that unlike fiat currencies like the U.S. Dollar, Bitcoin has a finite supply and thus it cannot be inflated or manipulated by, um, the government. (Don’t worry, I’m not going to dive too deep into the intricacies of crypto or blockchain here).
Then, I wanted to share the reason that I personally am so excited about Bitcoin: it’s an entirely brand new currency introduced in our lifetime! It’s fresh and, let’s be honest, there hasn’t been a lot of ‘new’ for the last 12 months since the pandemic. In fact, I realized that while other people were baking bread last March, I was more excited to learn about crypto.
Investment-wise, it reminds me of investing in jewelry; it’s a different store of value. Having a diversification of wealth is really exciting to me, and I want to delve deeper into how that works. The first transaction was 10,000 bitcoins for a pizza, and now? At today’s bitcoin value, that’s $45 million dollars worth of pizza! If you’re a quant analytic nerd, how can you not find that exciting!?
So if you want to diversify your store of wealth, look into Bitcoin. And if you noticed that the price of one Bitcoin today is $47,000, not to worry. One of the characteristics of Bitcoin is its divisibility, or the ability to split it up. Just like a dollar is divisible into 100 pennies, each Bitcoin is divisible into 100,000,000 subunits called Satoshis. If you’re trying to buy an egg, but the only thing you have to trade is an entire cow, you have a divisibility problem with that currency. But with Bitcoin, you don’t have to use a full coin. You can use Satoshis. Divisibility creates access to crypto, not only for people in the U.S. but for people around the world who either don’t have access to their currency or have devaluing currency. This is a global, digitally based way where they can convert labor to a medium of wealth that is not subject to the risk of devaluating currencies. It is also an efficient means of transferring that wealth. You can’t easily transmit, say, gold, but you can with Bitcoin. Easily, inexpensively, and quickly. There’s something very efficient about Bitcoin.
That’s why I’ve been so excited that Quontic Bank was the first financial institution in the U.S. to roll out a Bitcoin Rewards Checking account. Quontic founder and CEO, Steve Schnall, explains exactly how BRC works in his last blog post. But if you’re at all interested in how it works, there’s no better way to explore crypto than with rewards like these. None of your capital is being used—you are earning bitcoin without spending any additional funds on it. And it’s derived from the debit card transactions you are already making every day, like the $19 you already spent at the corner store, or $40 from your favorite online retailer.
Trust me when I say that it really can be that easy. It can be your catalyst for exploring this new and exciting, possibly even transformative, moment for our generation. It really can be your moment of realizing, “Oh, that’s all?”
