A three-minute YouTube explainer (Cointelegraph) that introduces Bitcoin and blockchain for a general audience. It covers Bitcoin’s origin (Satoshi Nakamoto, 2009), the blockchain ledger, mining and miners, the 21-million supply cap, transaction confirmations, anonymity, ways to acquire bitcoin, and the broader crypto ecosystem and innovations.
The easiest bitcoin explanation in only three minutes. Rumor has it that even Melania Trump is seeking advice on bitcoin, so maybe you should too. We'll leave the boring techy stuff to Wikipedia and just tell you the basics in three minutes. Time us. Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, the first and the most famous. Kind of like George Washington of the crypto world. Bitcoin first surfaced in 2009. Remember 2008? The economy was in shambles. The banking system collapsed. Millions of people went broke. Governments swore blindly that once the economy was back on its feet, the banks would pay everyone back. Well, not much of a surprise. That didn't happen at all. These tumultuous events became an inspiration to one man or a group of people who we now know as Satoshi Nakamoto. They invented a currency that could cut out banks and government, making them obsolete. It was named Bitcoin. And for the system to be transparent and fair, those very smart people made it so that absolutely all transactions stop. One more time. This is important. All transactions are stored on one big single digital ledger. This ledger was named the blockchain. Bitcoin is like digital gold. Its maximum amount of 21 million coins is limited by a mathematical formula. We say coins, but it's just a word to describe a digital entity. There's no physical coin. Bitcoins are mined by performing very complex mathematical calculations on computers. Bitcoin is not under the control of banks or governments. It's maintained by the crypto community. The community consists of people who mine new bitcoins. Hence, they're miners, almost like their ancestors who had to dig ditches in search of gold or coal. Modern miners dig complex equations and formulas. Not long ago, you could use PC to mine. Nowadays, people build giant factories and stuff them with server farms. The same miners do transaction confirmations. For your digital money to officially go to someone else's account, you have to receive six confirmations from other miners. So there's absolutely no chance of fraud. Miners are like little gnomes who quietly make their fortunes while looking after the whole system. Bitcoins are passed from person to person without any involvement from banks, brokers, a processing center, or or even Kim Jong Un himself or Vladimir Putin. It means transaction fees are low. You can use your bitcoins in any country and there's nothing anybody can do about it. And it's all completely anonymous. No link between your cryptocurrency account or wallet and your name. To become a happy owner of bitcoins, you don't really have to mine it. Just buy it at a cryptocurrency exchange, or from someone who has some to sell, or even earn it by providing some sort of services. Okay, let's. But let's be frank. Since Bitcoin took off the way it did, enthusiasts launch new cryptocurrencies every day. Most of them are much more advanced and convenient than their progenitor. There was a concern that major players and investors may lose faith in Bitcoin. But now there's so many brilliant mathematicians, programmers, and financial experts hard at work improving Bitcoin and all the other cryptocurrencies, it's reasonable to believe that the next big breakthrough will most likely happen in conjunction with current technology. Well, mate, that's all you need to know about Bitcoin. How convenient. We only took three minutes of your time, so like this video. Please subscribe and we'll tell you a lot more fascinating stories. Cointelegraph the Future of Money.
