Steve Wozniak (Image: Facebook/@highpointu)
Ever the tech innovator, Steve Wozniak bought bitcoins before there was a boom in the cryptocurrency.
The Apple co-founder bought bitcoins when they were only $700 each as an experiment. He was excited to see what he could do with them, the Economic Times reports.
“I had them so that I could someday travel and not use credit cards, wallets or cash. I could do it all on Bitcoin. I studied which hotels and facilities accepted Bitcoin,” he shared at the Economic Times Global Business Summit.
He noted, “It’s still very difficult to do so. I also tried to buy things online and trade Bitcoin online.”
While cryptocurrencies have the benefit of being independent of government regulation (so far), Wozniak experienced the digital currency’s pitfall when he was scammed.
The American inventor recounted his mishap. “I had seven bitcoins stolen from me through fraud. Somebody bought them from me online through a credit card and they canceled the credit card payment. It was that easy! And it was from a stolen credit card number so you can never get it back.”
One bitcoin currently costs $10,486.90 or P54,6073.86 as of writing; the loss would rack up to $73,408.30 today.
He told the audience that he only has one bitcoin after selling the rest. “I didn’t want to watch the price every day.” An understandable reason, given the cryptocurrency’s volatility: last December, bitcoin nearly reached the $20,000 mark.
Still, he has good things to say about it. “Bitcoins to me was a currency that was not manipulated by the governments. It is mathematical, it is pure, it can’t be altered.” Niña V. Guno /ra
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