Bitcoin is known as the very first decentralized digital currency, they're basically coins that can send through the Internet. 2009 was the year where bitcoin was born. The creator's name is unknown, however the alias Satoshi Nakamoto was given to this person.
Advantages of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin transactions are made directly from person to person trough the internet. There's no need of a bank or clearinghouse to act as the middle man. Thanks to that, the transaction fees are way too much lower, they can be used in all the countries around the world. Bitcoin accounts cannot be frozen, prerequisites to open them don't exist, same for limits. Every day more merchants are starting to accept them. You can buy anything you want with them.
How Bitcoin works.
It's possible to exchange dollars, euros or other currencies to bitcoin. You can buy and sell as it were any other country currency. In order to keep your bitcoins, you have to store them in something called wallets. These wallet are located in your pc, mobile device or in third party websites. Sending bitcoins is very simple. It's as simple as sending an email. You can purchase practically anything with bitcoins.
Why Bitcoins?
Bitcoin can be used anonymously to buy any kind of merchandise. International payments are extremely easy and very cheap. The reason of this, is that bitcoins are not really tied to any country. They're not subject to any kind regulation. Small businesses love them, because there're no credit card fees involved. There're persons who buy bitcoins just for the purpose of investment, expecting them to raise their value.
Ways of Acquiring Bitcoins.
1) Buy on an Exchange: people are allowed to buy or sell bitcoins from sites called bitcoin exchanges. They do this by using their country currencies or any other currency they have or like.
2) Transfers: persons can just send bitcoins to each other by their mobile phones, computers or by online platforms. It's the same as sending cash in a digital way.
3) Mining: the network is secured by some persons called the miners. They're rewarded regularly for all newly verified transactions. Theses transactions are fully verified and then they are recorded in what's known as a public transparent ledger. These individuals compete to mine these bitcoins, by using computer hardware to solve difficult math problems. Miners invest a lot of money in hardware. Nowadays, there's something called cloud mining. By using cloud mining, miners just invest money in third party websites, these sites provide all the required infrastructure, reducing hardware and energy consumption expenses.
Storing and saving bitcoins.
These bitcoins are stored in what is called digital wallets. These wallets exist in the cloud or in people's computers. A wallet is something similar to a virtual bank account. These wallets allow persons to send or receive bitcoins, pay for things or just save the bitcoins. Opposed to bank accounts, these bitcoin wallets are never insured by the FDIC.
Types of wallets.
1) Wallet in cloud: the advantage of having a wallet in the cloud is that people don't need to install any software in their computers and wait for long syncing processes. The disadvantage is that the cloud may be hacked and people may lose their bitcoins. Nevertheless, these sites are very secure.
2) Wallet on computer: the advantage of having a wallet on the computer is that people keep their bitcoins secured from the rest of the internet. The disadvantage is that people may delete them by formatting the computer or because of viruses.
Bitcoin Anonymity.
When doing a bitcoin transaction, there's no need to provide the real name of the person. Each one of the bitcoin transactions are recorded is what is known as a public log. This log contains only wallet IDs and not people's names. so basically each transaction is private. People can buy and sell things without being tracked.
Bitcoin innovation.
Bitcoin established a whole new way of innovation. The bitcoin software is all open source, this means anyone can review it. A nowadays fact is that bitcoin is transforming world's finances similar to how web changed everything about publishing. The concept is brilliant. When everyone has access to the whole bitcoin global market, new ideas appear. Transaction fees reductions is a fact of bitcoin. Accepting bitcoins cost anything, also they're very easy to setup. Charge backs don't exist. The bitcoin community will generate additional businesses of all kinds.
Source by Ramon Tarruella