Bitcoin for Beginners: What is Bitcoin
Bitcoin is a currency, pretty simple right? (don't worry we'll get a little deeper than that, but first...)
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What's the difference between the Euro, Pound and Dollar?
40,000 foot view: nothing, these currencies are all the same. The methodology is identical.
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- Fiat Currency (this money can be printed at will by those who control it)
- Centralized Model (You only control what's in your hand, because of the first bullet you don't control that either)
- High Fees, Low Interest (Due to the above two bullets you face monopoly style fees and heavy inflation / interest rate manipulations)
What's unique to the Bitcoin? (and other crypto currencies)
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- Value Based Currency (value created by the potential scarcity, security and ease of use)
- Decentralized Model (everyone and anyone can load a ledger of transactions)
- Low fees, High Interest (saying low fees could concern some folks, this is a much deeper conversation to get into, feel free to comment below about this one, thanks)
What Does All This Mean For You?
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Bitcoin is one of the only available currencies that could be consider "sound money". Bitcoin is sound, because it is tied to the blockchain technology. This technology has and will continue to revolutionize the transferring of information. The blockchain is to Bitcoin as gold was to the USD. When the USD fell off the gold standard, that was the end of the USD. Consider this...Milk doesn't cost more, because cows suddenly became harder to milk. Milk costs more, because those who have central control of the USD printed billions upon billions of dollars out of nothing, except ink and paper. With bitcoin, no one can ever do that to you again.
What's The BlockChain
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Bitcoin is unique, because of the blockchain. This is the technology that Bitcoin among many other things operates on. Think of this as a piece of paper that contains a public name (key) of all the bitcoin owners and how much bitcoin they have. Now imagine every 10 minutes another piece of paper with this same information, yet updated, gets stacked on the previous page.
The blockchain technology compares to current financial technology like the rotary phone compares to the smart phone. The amount of potential is endless.
Here's Some Examples
Financial (Bitcoin, Litcoin)
Let's say you want to send money to a Facebook friend in Venezuela. You can't use a bank, if local government has already seized accounts. You don't want to use a charity, because they work on mass and goodness knows how long it takes to determine which isn't corrupt. If your friend has a bitcoin wallet, you send it over with the click of a button. No banks, no governments, no regulators.
Land Ownership (Factom, BitFury)
Record land ownership within the blockchain. No longer rely on old paper institutions.
App Platform (Ethereum, Lisk, Waves)
Run your app secure data and transactions on the blockchain
Social Media (come on now you know this one)
Get paid by your peers based on the value of your article...or video to them, not the value an advertiser or corporation may get.
I'll stop here, but it's endless, go read and learn about the blockchain.
If you have an example of a way the blockchain is being used not mention or something new, add it in the comments. Thanks
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