CHAPTER 27Cryptocurrency
- § 27.1 What Is Cryptocurrency?
- § 27.2 What Are the Various Kinds of Cryptocurrency?
- § 27.3 Should Nonprofits Be Involved in Cryptocurrency?
- § 27.4 Cryptocurrencies and the Internal Revenue Service
§ 27.1 What Is Cryptocurrency?
Cryptocurrency is a digital medium of exchange that is bought, sold, and used on Internet exchanges to acquire goods and services and also as a speculative investment.
Digital cryptocurrency “coins” or “tokens” serve as proxies for ordinary cash, such as dollars and euros, but there are no physical counterparts like bank notes or coins that can be carried around. Cryptocurrency exists only in electronic form.1
The digital “ledger” that records all transactions is called blockchain. It is said to be nearly impossible to counterfeit or double-spend cryptocurrencies because blockchain is protected by cryptography.
Cryptography is “the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adversarial behavior.”2
Cryptocurrencies are typically independent of central banks or governments. Transactions are made and recorded on what is called a distributed accounts ledger, whose status is maintained through consensus among the operators of thousands of computers. They are theoretically immune to government interference or manipulation.3
§ 27.2 What Are the Various Kinds of Cryptocurrency?
The most popular cryptocurrencies right now are Bitcoin and Ethereum, but there are more than 10,000 different cryptocurrencies ...
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