What is Cryptocurrency?
A digital or virtual currency that is secured by cryptography, which makes it nearly impossible to double-spend or counterfeit is called CryptoCurrency.
Usually, cryptocurrencies are decentralized and based on blockchain technology. A distributed ledger enforced by a disparate network of computers. Cryptocurrencies are not issued by any central authority, rendering them theoretically immune to government interference or manipulation.
These cryptocurrencies can be mined or purchased from cryptocurrency exchanges. Nowadays e-commerce sites allow purchases using cryptocurrencies, but not all of them. Few popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are hardly used for retail transactions, but there are few ATM machines that are installed for their transactions. However, the skyrocketing value of cryptocurrencies has made them popular as trading instruments.
Bitcoin ATM Fees
Usually, customers are charged a service fee for using their services of a bitcoin ATM.
A percentage of the transaction rather than a fixed dollar fee is charged as a typical fee. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has warned that fees to use bitcoin can be very high. Coin flip, a bitcoin operator says its average fee for purchases is about 7% higher than the spot price for bitcoins.
Spot Price of Cryptocurrencies
The current price in the marketplace at which given assets (commodity, security, or currency) can be bought or sold for immediate delivery.
These spot prices are specific to both place and time, in a global economy, the spot prices are fairly uniform worldwide when accounting for exchange rates.
Bitcoin ATM Locations
There is popularity is increasing in Bitcoin ATMs in the U.S. An online directory that maintains the ATMs, known as Coin ATM Radar estimates an installed base of more than 9,000 kiosks in the U.S
Countries where cryptocurrencies are banned
Pakistan, Egypt, Iraq, Qatar, Oman, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Bangladesh, and China have banned cryptocurrencies. Other forty-two countries, including Algeria, Bahrain, Bolivia, and Bangladesh have implicitly banned digital currencies by putting restrictions on the banks for dealing with crypto or prohibiting cryptocurrency exchanges.
The number of countries where crypto is banned either completely or implicitly has more than doubled since 2018.
Reasons for banning cryptocurrencies
1-Money laundering
Few governments believed that these hyped cryptocurrencies are being used to funnel money to illegal sources and can cause the rise of destabilizing their financial systems. It is considered an easy mode of transferring money for cyber-terrorism.
2-Tax Evasion
These cryptos are considered in most of the country's outlaws as the Government and the financial institutions are not able to control or regulate them. It is difficult for most of countries to create and implement rules and laws for the taxation of the money used for transactions.
3-Big Risks
Crypto Market is very volatile, its value is not stable so there are very huge risk investments are involved.
4-Threat to traditional Banking Institutions
The Crypto-currency market stands as a threat to our traditional banking institutions. These cryptocurrencies operate without the involvement of third-party. Unlike the old banking system, these works on the system of decentralization, and all the transactions take place outside the bank and the bank did not receive any transaction fee.
5- Cryptocurrency Scams
The mad rush into cryptocurrency over the past several decades and years has caught the attention of all kinds of investors, but it has caught the attention of scammers. The aim of a cryptocurrency scam is to gain information such as security codes or trick an unsuspecting person into spending cryptocurrency to a compromised digital wallet. The scammers try to get information that gives access to the digital wallet of others or any private information that could lead to the access of an account. The illegal or fraudulent business also can take your cryptocurrencies.
There are a few popular ways such as social engineering scams in which they provide giveaways, phishing, extortion emails.
With the rise of new crypto-based investments such as initial coin offerings (ICO) and Non-Fungible tokens (NFTs), there are now even more risks and scammers trying to gain access to your money.
For example, scammers can create a fake website to offer initial coins or low price NFTs, to gain some profit, and then this website can be closed at any time after taking profits.
