November 2014
Intermediate to advanced
256 pages
7h 12m
English
Content preview from Bitcoin for the BefuddledBecome an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
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WHAT IS BITCOIN?
In the simplest terms, Bitcoin is just another currency. The term Bitcoin refers to the entire currency system, whereas bitcoins are the basic units of the currency.1 As with dollars, euros, yen, and gold coins, you can save bitcoins, spend them on goods and services, and exchange them for other currencies. However, Bitcoin is the world’s first currency that is both digital and decentralized.
A digital currency is one that can be easily stored and used on a computer. By this definition, even dollars can be considered a digital currency, since they can be easily sent to others or used to shop online, but their supply is controlled by a centralized bank organization. In contrast, gold coins are decentralized, meaning that no ...
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