

It's like a multitude of chefs feverishly racing to prepare a new, extremely complicated dish - and only the first one to serve up a perfect version of it ends up getting paid.
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Using specialized software and increasingly powerful (and energy-intensive) hardware, miners convert these blocks into sequences of code, known as a "hash." This is more dramatic than it sounds producing a hash requires serious computational power, and thousands of miners compete simultaneously to do it. Read: Blockchain explained - it builds trust when you need it most These blocks are known, collectively, as the "blockchain," an eternal, openly accessible record of all the transactions that have ever been made. When someone sends a bitcoin to someone else, the network records that transaction, and all the other transactions made over a certain period of time, in a "block." Computers running special software - the "miners" - inscribe these transactions in a gigantic digital ledger. And it isn't issued from the top down like traditional currency rather, bitcoin is "mined" by powerful computers connected to the internet.Ī person (or group, or company) mines bitcoin by doing a combination of advanced math and record-keeping. Owners are anonymous instead of using names, tax IDs or social security numbers, bitcoin connects buyers and sellers through encryption keys. It's decentralized - there's no government, institution (like a bank) or other authority that controls it. Simply put, bitcoin is a digital currency.

It's actually a little more complicated than that. (Check out the New Yorker's great profile of Nakamoto from 2011.)

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His stated goal was to create "a new electronic cash system" that was "completely decentralized with no server or central authority." After cultivating the concept and technology, in 2011, Nakamoto turned over the source code and domains to others in the bitcoin community, and subsequently vanished. Note: Physical bitcoin coins do not really exist.īitcoin was invented in 2009 by a person (or group) who called himself Satoshi Nakamoto. Every bitcoin story must include an image of a physical bitcoin.
