What is Bitcoin?

What is Bitcoin?



What is Bitcoin?Introduction

  • Bitcoin is a digital currency
  • Bitcoin came to life in January 2009
  • The creation and transfer of Bitcoin is based on a cryptographic protocol
  • All Bitcoin transactions are recorded in a public ledger called the block chain
  • Bitcoins are transferred through a peer to peer network
  • You can store your Bitcoins in a digital wallet
  • Mining is the process by which new Bitcoins are created
  • The number of Bitcoin is limited to 21.0 million
  • Each Bitcoin has 8 decimals which means that in total there are 2.1 × 1015 or 2.1 quadrillion currency units
  • Until today about 11.5 million Bitcoins have been mined

More about the Bitcoin wallet

  • Your Bitcoin wallet is the place where you store your Bitcoins
  • Be careful with your wallet - it's where your money is
  • You can either have a Bitcoin wallet installed locally on your computer or smartphone - choose one of these
  • You can also use an online wallet such as the one from coinbase.com
  • There are also ways to create paper wallets but this requires more technological insight. I will post more links here later
  • Generally it's good to have your money distributed over more than one place - but don't forget to keep track of where your Bitcoins are!

Advantages of Bitcoin as a currency

  • Fast money transfer
  • Very low cost money transfer
  • Frictionless international money transfer
  • No charge-backs
  • No double spending
  • No money printing possible

Resources

The short list below is a collection of links to the most important Bitcoin websites. You can find a more comprehensive list of Bitcoin knowledge sources under Wiki Bitcoin.

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