Bitcoin
Invented in 2009
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Replaces the typical trusted middleman in the money system (federal reserve, banks, governments) with a completely decentralized peer-2-peer system governed by open sourced algorithms.
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The Bitcoin system is a collection of clients analogous to torrent clients downloading a file. Every Bitcoin client has a record of every single transaction and the amount of Bitcoins in each account.
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Accounts are anonymous. They are just public key addresses without any personally identifiable information attached.
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When someone wishes to spend a Bitcoin, he uses a private key associated with his account and simply enters the address he wants to send the Bitcoins to. The network verifies all transactions automatically.
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The currency has a maximum circulation of just under 21 million coins (reached in 2140) causing the value of each coin to increase over time.
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That makes it deflationary (it's value increases over time) since > the supply of it is limited)
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This is countered by its ability to by split into arbitrary small > amounts (fractions of BC)
https://bitcoincharts.com/charts/volumepie/
Bitcoin days destroyed = metric of velocity (how fast money moves) since it can't be determined whether money is moved between the same person using different wallets.
It's based on the duration and amount of BC held (between received and send).
Predicted price levels (min.) per level (as of 2013):
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100\$
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1000\$
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30,000 \$
Blockchain
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer
- Ledger = transaction history based on blockchain technology
Block = blob of transactions during approx. 10 minutes
Bitcoin wallet
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Bitcoin wallet address = public key = something like a bank account number
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Private key only known to wallet's owner
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Desktop, Mobile, Cloud, versions
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Ledger = transaction history based on blockchain technology
Bitcoin.org / choose your wallet
Bitcoin mining
Ledger = transaction history based on blockchain technology
Replaces central authority that issues and verifies the currency
one takes a queue of transactions over a finite time period (approx. 10 minutes) = block and then create a math problem that takes roughly 10 minutes to solve, which also verifies the transactions by doing so. The first computer to resolve the problem receives an award of Bitcoins.
The difficulty of the calculation can be changed (as more computing power gets available)
See blockchain at https://tronscan.org/#/ or blockchain.org
