What is bitcoin?

What is bitcoin?

Put in the simplest terms: Bitcoin is a digital asset that runs on a public ledger. Bitcoins can be bought, sold, or traded, like a commodity, or used as payment for hard goods, like a currency.

Put in the proper technical terms: Bitcoin is open-source software for a decentralized, peer-to-peer payment system. Most people call bitcoin a digital currency or cryptocurrency, but these days, at the end of 2017, no one is really using bitcoin to buy things. Instead, people are rushing into bitcoin to buy and hold it as a speculative investment. For that reason, a more apt term for bitcoin right now is “digital asset” or “digital token.” 

 If you want to buy bitcoins, you can use an exchange like Coinbase, Kraken, Bitfinex, or Bitstamp, to name just a few.

Bitcoin was created in 2009 by someone (or someones) using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. It still isn’t known who that was, or how many bitcoins that person or group still holds.