What is Bitcoin? It is a new kind of money. Actually, it's just an old kind of money you're already familiar with, but with certain improvements. It turns out this new, improved money has some very important properties which make Bitcoin one of the most important inventions of all time.
At it's heart, Bitcoin is a ledger -- a list of transactions. That's it. A transaction is an event where a person sends 'money' from one 'account' to another. The transactions are stored in the order in which they occurred. The ledger is stored on computers.
If you've ever used a check (a paycheck, for example), or a credit card you've already used 'money' in the form of a ledger stored on computers.
So, what makes Bitcoin different? Bitcoin's ledger is stored on many thousands of computers, spread across the globe. Anybody is free to participate. The computers all use the same set of 'rules' to keep the Bitcoin ledger honest, fair, and accurate. The rules also specify precisely how, and how much new 'money' is to be created and to whom it will belong upon its creation. With checks and credit cards, the ledgers are kept in a relatively small number of computers owned and operated by banks.
Bitcoin 'money' is very, very difficult and expensive to create. The number of Bitcoins is strictly limited -- there will never be more than 21 million Bitcoins created. Many have already been lost forever. This makes each and every Bitcoin rare, and precious -- like gold, only better. Bank ledgers keep track of fiat money. Fiat money is created from thin air, by merely typing numbers into a bank computer; fiat money is not backed by gold or anything else; fiat money is even less precious than "play money" you'd find in the toy aisle of the dollar store. Fiat money loses value over time as the banking system creates more and more of it. Bitcoin gains value over time because demand rises (as more people understand its goodness) while the supply is strictly limited.
Newly created Bitcoin money goes, as a reward, to people who earned it by protecting the Bitcoin ledger (enforcing its rules, for example). This is fair, honest, and good. Newly created fiat money goes to bankers and then to their cronies. That's right: we have a very small group of people with the ability to create 'money' from nothing and then use it to enrich and empower themselves and their cronies at the expense of everybody else, including (but not limited to) elderly blind widows. It turns out that creating fiat money and using it (to buy things, to bail our broke banks and businesses, to bribe politicians) amounts to theft.
Fiat money is inherently flawed, dishonest, unfair, bad...
Bitcoin is honest, fair, and good.
Furthermore, the banks can and will cut people off from being able to use their ledgers/fiat-money system when a government tells them to do so. This has already happened to whistle blowers, dissidents, and even entire nations. Fiat money is not only used to rob ordinary people, it is also used as a 'weapon'. Bitcoin is open to everybody. Bitcoin cannot be coerced to "sanction" people (whether they deserve it or not). In short, fiat money supports violence and theft whereas Bitcoin promotes harmony, peace, and fairness via "sound money".
You are invited to join us. So, if you're interested...
Welcome to Bitcoin. I would like to encourage you to spend a little more time learning about it. Here's an excellent video to explain the basics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKwqNgG-Sv4
An excellent book, "The Bitcoin Standard," by S. Ammous.
This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to participate in something which changes the world in good ways while protecting and preserving your own wealth.
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