page<\/a>\u00a0on the website. The majority of the public has at least heard or read about it in the media and the questions I receive usually reflect this level of familiarity. So the first questions I get are usually “What is it?” and “How does it work?”. Unfortunately, we’ve left the details\u00a0sparse up until recently.
\n<\/p>\nWhat is it?<\/h3>\n
A decentralized system to transfer and store payments. It is also a new kind of money. To get a bit more detailed, it’s a bit like cash in digital form that is neither controlled nor produced by a central authority. Transactions are securely recorded in a cryptographically secure ledger called the blockchain. The blockchain is publically viewable and offers some really distinct advantages over cash which I’ll discuss later on.<\/p>\n
How does it work?<\/h3>\n
This is always a difficult question because the system through which bitcoin functions is difficult to explain to an audience without knowledge in p2p networks and public key cryptography. It’s also frustrating because nobody ever questions the way through which US dollars are created. Suffice it to say, the key points are it’s impossible to counterfeit (since 2009 there has not been a successful\u00a0attack against the network), very costly to “mine” new bitcoin, and very\u00a0easy to carry. I’m including a short video below that explains the basic\u00a0functionality:<\/p>\n