You’ve probably heard of Bitcoin if you’ve come this far. Over the last year or so, it has been one of the most often reported news stories, whether as a get-rich-quick scheme, the end of banking, the birth of really worldwide money, the end of the planet, or a technology that has changed the world. But what exactly is Bitcoin?
In a nutshell, Bitcoin is the first decentralised system of money used for online transactions, but it’s worth digging a little further. Bitcoin web hosting is yet another helpful term that one should know about if interested in working with bitcoin.
In general, we all understand what money is and what it is used for.
The major difficulty with money use before Bitcoin was that it was centralised and controlled by a single organisation – the centralised banking system. Bitcoin was created in 2008/2009 by an unknown author under the pseudonym ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’ to bring worldwide decentralisation to money.
How did Bitcoin get its start?
Satoshi, an unnamed researcher, pioneered the concept of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general in 2009.
It was created to address the issue of centralisation in the usage of money, which relied on banks and computers, which many computer experts were unhappy with. Decentralisation has been attempted without success since the late 1990s, so when Satoshi released a paper in 2008 proposing a solution, it was warmly received.
How is Bitcoin created?
Bitcoin is created through a process known as mining. Bitcoin is generated through a process similar to how paper money is created and gold is mined from the earth.
Mining is utilising computers to solve complicated mathematical problems using blocks and uploading the results to a public ledger. When it first started, all you required was a simple CPU (like the one on your home computer). However, the level of difficulty has risen substantially, and you will now need specialised hardware, including high-end Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), to extract Bitcoin.
How should I go about investing?
You must first make an account with a trading platform and generate a wallet; you may discover several examples by searching Google for ‘Bitcoin trading platform’ – they usually have titles that include the words ‘coin’ or market.’ After joining one of these sites, you select your chosen currency by clicking on the assets and then on crypto.
