Bitcoin is digital money AND a digital money exchange system. It was created in 2008 by an anonymous developer to facilitate online transactions without using banks. Remember physically exchanging cash for services or products in real time? You simply agreed on a price and exchanged money for that product or service. Banks weren’t involved.
Enter the internet age.
Now it’s impossible to conduct business online without a bank’s authorization and input, not to mention MULTIPLE transaction fees from MULTIPLE parties piled on the original transaction.
So now, when you want to buy a product or service, you’re not just handing money to the seller — you’re handing money to all the different third, fourth, and fifth parties that have joined your little (ok, BIG) transaction party. Now you’re not just paying for one thing. You’re paying a bunch of different businesses for the ABILITY to pay for that one thing. Welcome to the party.
So what is Bitcoin? Bitcoin is the solution to commerce in the internet age because it is a monetary system built for the internet age. It creates its own money (bitcoin — capped at 21 million), distributes that bitcoin (via mining), and regulates itself through protocols built into the software. It’s also open-source which means transactions can be viewed by anyone, anytime, anywhere. But although all transactions can be viewed, no transaction can identify a particular consumer, so your identity is safe and private. And, yes, Bitcoin does have a transaction fee when you purchase through a third party exchange platform, BUT that’s like a cozy little dinner for two, NOT the multi-system transaction party of the current monetary system.
