S4B Crypto Contest - Season 2

Hello everyone,
It's your favorite Steemian @rakiya from Nigeria and I'm delighted to join in this contest organized by @waqarahmadshah in this noble community today. It's a wonderful contest and I love to share my participation in it.

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Who created the first cryptocurrency, and when?

The first cryptocurrency was created in the year 2009 by an individual or group of individuals known as Satoshi Nakamoto. I said by individual or group of individuals because to date the owner or owners of the said token is not known by anyone.

The major reason for the creation of this cryptocurrency was to bridge the gap between a third party such as a bank and other financial institutions in the transaction of an asset. This will enable people to transact directly with each other without any interference or delay by a third party.

Ever since Bitcoin came to the limelight, many other cryptocurrencies have emerged and today we also have the likes of Steem, SBD, TRX, and many more.

So that is how other crypto started coming into play ever since BTC was created in 2009 by an individual or group of individuals called Satoshi Nakamoto.

Are cryptocurrencies controlled by governments or financial institutions?

Cryptocurrency in my opinion is controlled by financial institutions but the government also has great influence over cryptocurrency because there are occasions where you see government laws affecting the crypto market.

Recently, here in Nigeria, there was news that Binance has been banned by the Nigerian government, and that has made trading for Nigerians more difficult. The P2P part was removed from Nigeria and hence that affected the flow of crypto here in my country.

So in summary I think both the financial institutions and the government control the crypto market.

What are some of the risks associated with investing in cryptocurrencies?

There are lots of risks associated with investing in cryptocurrency and one of the major risks is that the exchange can fold and your asset will be trapped there. A good example is the case of the FTX exchange where people lost billions of dollars because of the issues with the exchange.

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Another case is the Luna crash that happened some years ago where we saw the price of the said asset move from almost $100 to around $0.001, for those who invested much here, have lost a lot of money.

Also, there are risks of investing in fake projects that don't stand the test of time. This one comes to scam people and then carry their money away. I was mining Cakecore even before I joined the Steemit platform and I bought some core tokens to use as gas fees and they collected the little money I had without continuing the project.

I want to invite @lhorgic, @mesola, and @dave-hanny to join the contest also.