What Is Bitcoin?
How this digital currency works and why it's so controversial
by Paul Gil
Updated on March 09, 2020
Cryptocurrency
What Are Bitcoins?
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Bitcoin is a virtual currency that gained recognition after its price-per-coin rose above $13,000 in early 2018. The cryptocurrency (one of many) is at the center of a complex intersection of privacy, banking regulations, and technological innovation. Today, some retailers accept bitcoin, while in other jurisdictions, bitcoin is illegal.
Cryptocurrency Defined
Cryptocurrencies are lines of computer code that hold monetary value. These lines of code are created by electricity and high-performance computers.
Cryptocurrency is also known as digital currency. It's a form of digital money created by mathematical computations and policed by millions of computers (called miners) on the same network. Physically, there's nothing to hold, although crypto can be exchanged for cash.
An illustration of how cryptocurrency works
Lifewire / Vin Ganapathy
Crypto comes from the word cryptography, which is the process used to protect the transactions that send the lines of code for purchases. Cryptography also controls the creation of new coins. Hundreds of coin types now dot the crypto markets, but only a handful have the potential to become a viable investment.
Governments have no control over the creation of cryptocurrencies, which is what initially made them so popular. Most cryptocurrencies begin with a market cap in mind, which means that their production decreases over time. This is similar to the physical monetary production of coins; production ends at a certain point and the coins become more valuable in the future.
What Are Bitcoins?
Bitcoin was the first popular cryptocurrency. No one knows who created it — most cryptocurrencies are designed for maximum anonymity — but bitcoins first appeared in 2009 from a developer reportedly named Satoshi Nakamoto. He has since disappeared and left behind a bitcoin fortune.
Because bitcoin was the first major cryptocurrency, all digital currencies created since then are called altcoins, or alternative coins. Litecoin, Peercoin, Feathercoin, Ethereum, and hundreds of other coins are all altcoins because they are not bitcoin.
One of the advantages of bitcoin is that it can be stored offline on local hardware, such as a secure hard drive. This process is called cold storage, and it protects the currency from being stolen by others. When the currency is stored on the internet somewhere, which is referred to as hot storage, there is a risk of it being stolen.
On the flip side, if a person loses access to the hardware that contains the bitcoins, the currency is gone forever. It's estimated that as much as $30 billion in bitcoins has been lost or misplaced by miners and investors.
Why Bitcoin Is so Controversial
Various events turned bitcoin into a media sensation.
From 2011 to 2013, criminal traders made bitcoins famous by buying them in batches of millions of dollars so they could move money outside of the eyes of law enforcement and tax collectors. Subsequently, the value of bitcoins skyrocketed.
Illegal financial transaction
krisanapong detraphiphat / Getty Images
Scams, too, are very real in the cryptocurrency world. Naive and savvy investors alike can lose hundreds or thousands of dollars to scams.
Bitcoins and altcoins are controversial because they take the power of issuing money away from central banks and give it to the general public. Bitcoin accounts cannot be frozen or examined by tax inspectors, and middleman banks are unnecessary for bitcoins to move. Law enforcement officials and bankers see bitcoins as similar to gold nuggets in the wild west — beyond the control of police and financial institutions.
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Bitcoin is an adaptive and evolving system; it is not static. No one controls the network and there are no leaders capable of forcing changes onto the network. It is decentralized at every layer, and as a result, it has shown to be immune to any type of attack. However, it is not just immune to attack or errors, bitcoin actually becomes stronger as: i) external forces attempt to influence or coopt the network; ii) as individuals within the network make errors; and, iii) as a very function of its volatility, which is often perceived to be a limiting, if not critical, flaw. As bitcoin survives shocks and as individuals learn from errors and adapt to its volatility, bitcoin becomes tangibly more reliable; its demonstration of resilience and immunity causes trust to be reinforced in the network, which increases adoption and makes bitcoin more resistant to future attack or individual errors. It is a positive, self-reinforcing feedback loop. With every failed attempt to coopt or coerce the network, the bitcoin protocol hardens and confidence increases. Every time bitcoin doesn’t die, that very event propels bitcoin forward, and in a fundamentally stronger state than previously existed.bitcoin халява
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The earliest alternative cryptocurrency of all, Namecoin, attempted to use a Bitcoin-like blockchain to provide a name registration system, where users can register their names in a public database alongside other data. The major cited use case is for a DNS system, mapping domain names like 'bitcoin.org' (or, in Namecoin's case, 'bitcoin.bit') to an IP address. Other use cases include email authentication and potentially more advanced reputation systems. Here is the basic contract to provide a Namecoin-like name registration system on Ethereum:bitcoin multiplier bitcoin пулы webmoney bitcoin • Bitcoin savers could accelerate a revolution in the history of thoughtnvidia bitcoin
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Perhaps more than diversification, investors inclined to add bitcoin holdings to their IRAs likely believe that cryptocurrencies will continue to grow in popularity and accessibility into the future. With their long-term outlook, IRAs are an excellent vehicle for investments that hold major potential on the scale of decades. Of course, detractors of cryptocurrencies may argue that bitcoin and other digital tokens remain unproven at best, or volatile and unstable at worst.🍰surf bitcoin gif bitcoin
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