What is Bitcoin
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
bitcoin, crypto, bitcoins, episode, transactions, digital wallet, podcast, verifying transactions, investor, blockchain, white paper, payment, digital token, decentralized, dollars, pounds, euro, pesos
00:00
Welcome to the New to Crypto Podcast designed to guide you through the crypto landscape with pinpoint accuracy created for the new and intermediate crypto investor. Join your host Crypto Travels Michael as he takes you through the different facets of getting started and succeeding in your crypto journey. New to Crypto Podcast brings you new episodes daily Monday through Friday with surprise bonus episodes sometimes on the weekend. Let me ask you, are you new to crypto, don’t know where to start? Are you more experienced but have questions? Then you’re in the right place. This podcast is designed for you coming at you from the Trading Center and the lifestyle design studio. Here’s your host Crypto Travels Michael.
00:54
Welcome to the very first episode of the New to Crypto Podcast. My name is Michael and I will be delivering daily easy to consume bite sized episodes packed full of value to help teach and guide you through your crypto journey. We will start with the basics and gradually increase upwards. I will also be interviewing key people in industry to give you the most up to date information as it becomes available. I’m passionate about sharing the freedom and opportunities that crypto provides. You can now use crypto to invest, make purchases, do trading, get loans, and so much more. This is an exciting time in crypto. In our journey together I’ll be unpacking with each of the major topics in crypto as well as detailed information about major coins and blockchains and how to do all the basics. Without further ado, let’s jump in with both feet into our first episode.
01:58
So today I want to break down with you what exactly Bitcoin is. So I’m going to describe it in the simplest way possible. Bitcoin is basically a decentralized digital currency. So Bitcoins are digital coins, or digital tokens that you can send digitally. They’re sent through the internet. So it’s a worldwide payment system, some call it a new form of money. No one owns or controls Bitcoin, the system, anyone can be part of it, and it’s definitely designed to be public. So Bitcoin uses what they call open source or peer to peer technology, meaning that you can send directly and transfer bitcoins to any person in the world in minutes by just using the internet. And transactions do not have to go through a third party like a bank, brokerage, etc. None of that is necessary.
02:56
And so what this means is fees are lower. And the delivery time is faster. No censorship and your transaction. Unlike banks, your account with Bitcoin cannot be frozen, and there’s no sending limits. So you can send any amount of bitcoins that you would like to any person anywhere in the world in minutes. So there’s no prerequisites, like a bank account in order to get set up, get approved for account KYC etc. You basically just need a digital wallet to hold your bitcoins and digital wallets are free and they can be set up in minutes. So how does this whole Bitcoin thing work? So there are currency exchanges, where you can buy and sell Bitcoin using Dollars, Euro, Pounds, Pesos and nearly any other currency you can think of. So your bitcoins are kept secure in your digital wallet, on your computer or mobile device.
03:59
Sending bitcoins is basically as simple as sending a text message or WhatsApp, an email, a PayPal transaction, any other kind of message you can think of. So it’s very simple. You can purchase almost anything these days with Bitcoin, including vacations, cars, even houses, and anything in between, that you can think of. So the Bitcoin network is basically secured by what they call miners, miners are basically rewarded newly generated bitcoins for verifying transactions. So after transactions are verified, they are recorded into a transparent ledger.
04:44
It’s a public ledger, and anyone in the world can review this ledger and it can’t be changed or altered. So Bitcoin is open source, meaning anyone can review the code and Bitcoin has definitely changed the way the world is doing finance transactions. So everyone has access to this global market. So it’s worldwide, it’s a game changer. And businesses can accept payment by Bitcoin. Without any startup fees. It doesn’t cost anything for a business to start accepting Bitcoin and is basically easy to set up. And unlike Visa and MasterCard transactions, there’s no chargebacks.
05:26
So businesses can also receive additional business from the cryptocurrency ecosystem, just by accepting Bitcoin as payment. Because there’s a lot of people these days that just prefer to make all their payments as much as they can, with Bitcoin and even other cryptocurrencies, which we will get into in later episodes. So the Bitcoin proof of concept was published in 2009. In a white paper by an unknown person, this person basically used the name or pseudonym named Satoshi Nakamoto. But no one knows exactly who created Bitcoin, because the founder was anonymous, never came forward publicly. So no one really knows the identity of the founder. But one thing is for certain, the inventor of Bitcoin made all of the source code for Bitcoin open source, right? Meaning anyone has access to the code.
06:26
And Bitcoin is used for transactions currently, as well as a store of value. So what I mean by Bitcoin is also used as a store of value. It’s used as a store of value similar to gold, how gold is a store of value, to hold wealth or to hold that value, regardless of what the currencies of the world of different countries do over time. Bitcoin is a really strong stable store of value in the eyes of many investors, even fortune 500 companies like MicroStrategy. So I have some great resources that I’m going to share with you, if you just head over to the website, newtocrypto.io. The link should be here on the podcast.
07:14
And it’s basically What is Bitcoin Podcast episode, blog page for it. And I’m going to share with you the original Bitcoin white paper from the Creator. And I actually got this link, it’s from the Miami government, they actually have a direct download link for you via PDF. I also have another one for you . If you would like to actually review the Bitcoin code, there’s actually the pre release of the Bitcoin code in 2008, followed by the next two releases, which were on January 9, and January 14 2009. So if you’re a coder, if you’re just curious, if you want to review the code, I’m going to make all that available, as well as one of the original bitcoin wallets that’s free and you can set up literally in minutes, it’s called electron. So all those links are going to be there.
08:10
Lastly, I’m going to share with you a really good book that I really enjoy reading. The book is called the Bitcoin standard, the decentralized alternative to central banking. It really breaks down it’s written by an academic scholar, it breaks down Bitcoin digital currencies, the whole alternative, decentralized alternative to central banking, essentially with cryptocurrencies, you can now become essentially your own banker, and the book is really well written, and I have an Amazon link for you there. There’ll be some other resources as well things pertaining to Bitcoin. Try to help you understand and learn as easy as possible about what Bitcoin is in future episodes. I’ll be breaking down all the other facets of cryptocurrency blockchain, the different types of cryptos, how to use wallets etc.
09:12
that concludes our episode for today. I hope that this was useful and this helps explain to you and so you can better understand what exactly is Bitcoin?
09:23
Thanks for tuning in to New to Crypto Podcast. If you liked the episode, be sure to follow and subscribe. You can listen to every episode on all major platforms and have an interest in being on the show or one advertising reach out at newtocrypto.io. Head over to our site newtocrypto.io to access the resources mentioned in each episode. Until next time, remember to navigate the crypto landscape with pinpoint accuracy
