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To cut through some of this confusion surrounding bitcoin, we need to separate it into two components. On the one hand, you've got bitcoin-the-token, a snippet of code that represents ownership of an electronic concept sort of like a virtual IOU. On the other hand, you've got bitcoin-the-protocol, a dispersed network which maintains a ledger of balances of bitcoin-the-token.
The system enables payments to be sent between users without passing via a central authority, like a bank or payment gateway. It's made and kept electronically. Bitcoins arent printed, like dollars or euros theyre made by computers all around the world, using free software.
It was the first example of what we today call cryptocurrencies, a growing asset category that shares some characteristics of traditional currencies, with verification based on cryptography.
A pseudonymous software developer going by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto suggested bitcoin in 2008, within an electronic payment system based on mathematical evidence. The idea was to produce a means of exchange, independent of any central power, that could be transferred electronically in a secure, verifiable and immutable manner.
Bitcoins most important characteristic is it is decentralized. No single institution controls the bitcoin network. It's maintained by a group of volunteer coders, and run by an open network of committed servers spread around the world. This brings individuals and groups who are uncomfortable with the control that banks or government institutions have over their money. .
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Bitcoin solves the double spending problem of electronic currencies (in which electronic assets can readily be copied and re-used) via an ingenious combination of cryptography and economic incentives. In electronic fiat currencies, this function is fulfilled by banks, which gives them control over the traditional system. Together with bitcoin, the integrity of these transactions is maintained by a distributed and open network, owned by no-one. .
Fiat currencies (dollars, euros, yen, etc.) have an unlimited supply central banks can issue as many as they want, and can try to manipulate a currencys worth relative to other people. Holders of the currency (and especially citizens with little alternative) bear the cost.
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With bitcoin, on the other hand, the distribution is closely controlled by the underlying algorithm. Even a small number of new bitcoins trickle every hourand will continue to do so at a diminishing rate until a maximum of 21 million has been reached. This creates bitcoin more appealing as an advantage in theory, if demand grows and the distribution remains the same, the value will increase. .
Even though senders of traditional electronic payments are often identified (for verification purposes, and to abide by anti-money laundering and other legislation), users of bitcoin in theory function in semi-anonymity. Since there is no central validator, users do not need to identify themselves when sending bitcoin to another user. When a transaction request is submitted, What Is Bitcoin Worth the protocol checks all previous transactions to confirm that the sender gets the necessary bitcoin in addition to the ability to send them.
In practice, every user is identified by the address of his or her pocket. Transactions can, with a little effort, be tracked this way. Additionally, law enforcement has developed approaches to identify consumers if necessary.
Furthermore, most exchanges are required by legislation to perform identity checks on their customers before they are permitted to buy or sell bitcoin, facilitating another manner that bitcoin usage can be monitored. Since the network is transparent, the progress of a specific transaction is visible to all.
This is because there's absolutely no central adjudicator that can say ok, return the money. If a transaction is listed on the network, and if greater than an hour has passed, it's impossible to change.
While this may disquiet a few, it does mean that any transaction on the bitcoin network cannot be tampered with.
The smallest unit of a bitcoin is referred to as a satoshi. It is one hundred millionth of a bitcoin hop over to here (0.00000001) at todays prices, about one hundredth of a cent. This may conceivably enable microtransactions that traditional electronic money cannot.
Bitcoin is an electronic currency, also known as a cryptocurrency. It had been invented in 2008 with an anonymous person or group named Satoshi Nakamoto.