In the past few years cryptocurrencies have been drawing significant interest to everyone.

Cryptocurrency is a digital currency built with cryptographic protocols that make transactions secure
and difficult to fake. It has the feature where in the central authority don’t have any control with the
transactions made rendering it theoretically immune to government interference or manipulation.
When we say “Crypto” it refers to the fact that various encryption algorithms and cryptographic
techniques, such as elliptical curve encryption, public-private key pairs, and hashing function, are
employed. Where in the private key and public key are part of an encryption that encodes information,
these keys work in two encryption system, the symmetric and asymmetric. The private key is for better
security where a message sender encrypts the message with public key and the receiver decrypts it with
the private key. One example of public key technique is the Elliptical Curve Cryptography (ECC). Many
cyrptocurrencies are decentralized systems based on blockchain technology. Where in blockchain is the
record-keeping technology behind bitcoin. When we say the words “block” and “chain” in this context,
we are actually talking about digital information (block) stored in a public database (chain)

Today, there are thousands of alternate cryptocurrencies with various functions or specifications. Some
of these are clones of Bitcoin while others are forks or new cryptocurrencies that split off from an
already existing one. The top 10 biggest coin right now base on Market Cap are the following, first is the
bitcoin having $86,945,434,769 and have a Philippine value of Php. 260,182.30. Bitcoin is develop by
Satoshi Nakamoto in the year 2009 and developed by Wladimir J. Van Der Laan, who took over the role
on April 8, 2014. It hava a block time of 10 minutes. The circulating supply of bitcoin is 17,560,833 as of
February 27, 2019 and have a supply limit of 21,000,000. Next to bitcoin is the Ethereum which brought
the concept of “smart contracts” to the blockchain. First release in 2015 by the 21-year-old Vitalik
Buterin. Followed by Ripple which is aiming to improve the speed of financial transactions, especially the
banking transactions. Next to it is the bitcoin cash that was created on August 2017, it does not have
one single development team like Bitcoin. The fifth is the stellar lumens, it is based on Ripple protocol,
they seeks to use blockchain to make very fast international transactions with small payments. Next to it
is the EOS, it is build as a potential “Ethereum Killer”, EOS looks to improve is the scalability problems
which has plagued the Ethereum network every time they are having large transaction volumes. After
EOS is the Litecoin, same to Bitcoin it is also a “peer-to-peer transaction platform”, it is referred to be
the “digital silver” because silver is traditionally used during small transactions same with Litecoin
designed to process small transactions we make daily. Next is the Cardano, a smart contract-focused
blockchain, they seek to create a strong software foundation which will be completely open-source. The
9th coin is the Monero, it is designed to be used as a completely anonymous payment system. The tenth
is the Tether, every USDT is backed by one US dollar. Its goal is to facilitate transactions with a rate fixed
to the USD.

With its popularity at an all time-high, bitcoins naturally earns Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and Security
and Exchange Commission’s attention. The two major regulators are keeping its eyes open and focused
on this technology. According to BSP Deputy Governor Nestor A. Espenilla Jr, bitcoin is becoming
popular in the Philippines, he even said on 2017 how Filipinos started using Bitcoin to send or receive
remittances from abroad. Philippines ranks high in the list of countries receiving remittances abroad,
same as Business Process Outsourcing and other related jobs who are using cryptocurrency. In a study
by consulting firm Research and Tech Lab (RTL), there is a good number of Overseas Filipino Workers
(OFW’s) that is using cryptocurrencies. The respondents cite avoiding inconveniences in opening a bank
account and to help them save a couple of pesos from the charges. Other reasons why Philippines is a
viable country for cryptocountries is because, Philippines is becoming one of the top countries in the
world that offers good location to build blockchain and cryptocurrency projects since Philippines is an
English speaking country, cryptocurrency also have a big room to grow since the unbanked population in
the Philippines is huge. In addition with that, the BSP and SEC are working to regulate cryptocurrency to
protect the Filipinos. They also made circulars to remind every Filipino people in using bitcoins. These
circulars were made to protect the people against the interest of those who want to take advantage of
the new technology. BSP release the Memorandum Circular No. 944 that serves as a guidelines for
virtual currency exchange in the country, this is to prevent some people to put dirty money into the
country through Bitcoins. Here in the Philippines, buying, selling or trading bitcoins is easy, there’s an
application like Coins.ph, Bitbit.cash or Abra then go to the nearest pawnshop or 7-11 convenience
store. Small or large business here in the country can use bitcoins as long as they also have bitcoins in
their wallet or account. According also to the US-based Pew Research Center in February 2016, 40% of
the Philippine population use the internet, while 22% own a smartphone, making Philippines more
accessible to virtual currency. Other than these, cryptocurrency has its advantage which is good for the
Filipino users. It has a good and strong security, meaning the that the wallet owners will be kept private
according to Michael Lewis of Money Crashers. Next, is the quick transactions, when using a virtual
currency, a user will not be going to spend his or her whole time on doing their bank transaction. In
virtual currency, you just to need an approximately one hour to complete the whole transaction. In
addition with that, the user will not be charge any fees in using virtual currency since it doesn’t pass
through any bank institutions. Cryptocurrency helps the Filipinos, Filipinos help the business using
cryptocurrency. A win-win situation for both.

At the current time, virtual currencies like bitcoin become the smarter version of money, it doesn’t
require cost and time in managing it. But on the other hand let us also put in our mind that bitcoin will
not replace areas who use physical money. In addition with that, people should think smarter in using it.
Yes bitcoins or cryptocurrencies are the smarter version of money, but people are smarter than
anything.