Bitcoin is the initial virtual banking currency of the internet and it has existed for several years now and many people have questions about them. Where do they come from? Are they legal? Where can you get them? Why did they split into Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash?
For all these questions to be answered we must know about Cryptocurrency.
Cryptocurrencies are just lines of computer code that hold monetary value. Those lines of code are created by electricity and high-performance computers.
Cryptocurrency is also known as digital currency. Either way, it is a form of digital public money that is created by painstaking mathematical computations and policed by millions of computer users called 'miners'. Physically, there is nothing to hold.
Now come back to Bitcoins!
Bitcoin was the first cryptocoin currency ever invented. No one knows exactly who created it – cryptocurrencies are designed for maximum anonymity – but bitcoins first appeared in 2009 from a developer supposedly named Satoshi Nakamoto.
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency and worldwide payment system.[9]:3 It is the first decentralized digital currency, as the system works without a central bank or single administrator.[9]:1[10] The network is peer-to-peer and transactions take place between users directly, without an intermediary.[9]:4 These transactions are verified by network nodes through the use of cryptography and recorded in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain.
How Bitcoins Work?
Bitcoins are completely virtual coins designed to be 'self-contained' for their value, with no need for banks to move and store the money. Once you own bitcoins, they behave like physical gold coins: they possess value and trade just as if they were nuggets of gold in your pocket. You can use your bitcoins to purchase goods and services online, or you can tuck them away and hope that their value increases over the years.
Bitcoins are traded from one personal 'wallet' to another. A wallet is a small personal database that you store on your computer drive (i.e cold storage), on your smartphone, on your tablet, or somewhere in the cloud (hot storage).
For all intents, bitcoins are forgery-resistant. It is so computationally-intensive to create a bitcoin, it isn't financially worth it for counterfeiters to manipulate the system.
