Bitcoin for the Befuddled

Footnotes

Chapter 1: What is Bitcoin?

1. Similar to how renminbi is name of the Chinese currency, but the yuan is the basic unit.

2. For example, in the mid-1800s, banks, companies, churches, and individuals issued hundreds of private currencies in the United States. Eventually, most of these private currencies lost all their value.

3. Between 1921 and 1924, the value of the German mark fell by a factor of more than 10 trillion due to overprinting by the government. In 2008, the government of Zimbabwe printed so much of its currency that in a single year, a loaf of bread increased from $1 to $100 billion. In both cases, any savings that people had in the form of national currency were completely destroyed.

4. To say that something is decentralized ...