Bitcoin for newbies

Hello and thank you for reading, so you've probably heard by now of a digital currency called bitcoin but you might still be unsure. I'm here to help, first let's deal with the who, what, how questions.

What is bitcoin (BTC)? Bitcoin is a digital, decentralized currency. We spend digital money daily when we order online, swipe our debit or credit cards, use PayPal, etc. Those are all tied to your bank account so the transactions your making a few ppl have they hands out in the form of fees. Bitcoin is decentralized meaning all of it isn't in one place it's spread across all computers on the network via the blockchain. BTC is finite and only 21 million coins will be mined. Right now 16 million are in circulation now.

What is the blockchain? The blockchain is a public ledger where everyone can see every bitcoin transaction ever made. All BTC transactions must be approved on the blockchain before a transaction is valid. To this day the blockchain has NEVER been hacked.

Who made up BTC ? IN 2008 during the housing bubble explosion someone "named" Satoshi Nakamoto uploaded the white pages to an open forum. These white pages was the blueprint for the blockchain and BTC.

How are BTC created? BTC come into existence by a process called "mining". Now when person A want to buy from person B, person A starts the process by sending BTC to B. Now this request comes up on the blockchain. Through cryptography math a problem is solved. The person that solves the problem is awarded with some BTC and that transaction is confirmed and it goes through. Now person A BTC wallet is debited x amount and person B BTC wallet is credited x amount.

Why use BTC? BTC was born out of financial irresponsibility. The current monetary system constantly devalues it's currency when it prints more of it out of thin air. For the most part that's how our current system works. BTC although no backed by anything tangible like gold it's proof of work, solving equations ensures no counterfeiting any BTC. BTC virtually removes the banks from your financial transactions. You can send someone on the other side of the world BTC and they can get it in hours as opposed to days and hella bank fees. And that's if the banks are open. The banks are getting into blockchain tech, Visa just hired an Ethereum blockchain engineer.

Where do you start? First things first you have to have some accounts open to be in the BTC game. You need a BTC wallet to hold your BTC. A company like Coinbase allows you to buy/sell BTC. Just like your Nexflix subscription you link your banking to the account so you can fund or withdrawal your profits. You can buy fractions of BTC in any amount your comfortable with. NEVER INVEST MORE THEN YIUR WILLING TO LOOSE!!!

I hope this helps and answered some questions you might have. Please do your own homework before you decide to get some skin in the game.