What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a new type of digital money and, just like with all money, you can store it, exchange it, and make payments with it. The key to what makes Bitcoin different from national currencies like the US Dollar, the Euro or the Japanese Yen lies in its decentralized structure and opt-in model. What does that mean?
With centralized ‘fiat money’ (literally money by decree), currency is issued by central banks, and citizens are forced to use the money of their nation. With the exception of cash (which is becoming increasingly rare), transactions are made through intermediaries like banks and payment gateways.
Bitcoin, by contrast, is an opt-in currency that is controlled by the ‘consensus’ or the will of its users. It consists of a growing network of people who voluntarily agree to the rules of the Bitcoin protocol. They use decentralized infrastructure to make transactions on a peer-to-peer basis and to store value independently of any government, company, or financial institution. There’s no need to ask for permission to use Bitcoin, and there’s no risk of being cut off from the system.
Importantly, the system itself is headless and distributed globally, making it both resistant to corruption and extremely durable.