What is Bitcoin and how does it work? Is it legal? Who's behind it?
What is bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a worldwide cryptocurrency and digital payment system called the first decentralized digital currency, as the system works without a central repository or single administrator. It was invented by an unknown person or group of people under the name Satoshi Nakamoto and released as open-source software in 2009.
The system is peer-to-peer, and transactions take place between users directly, without an intermediary. These transactions are verified by network nodes and recorded in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain.
It is also called Internet of Money(IoM) and digital gold.
As of 14–10–2017, 22:58 Hours, the bitcoin dominance is 54.1% and price is $ 5697 per bitcoin.
Source : Cryptocurrency Market Capitalizations | CoinMarketCap
How does it works?
Bitcoin is pretty similar to how email works, you can send money from your digital wallet to other digital wallet. Each wallet has unique address. The intermediate process shown below is called mining.
Source: how-it-works
Further read/watch: 1) Bitcoin
- What Is Bitcoin and How Does It Work? | Mashable Explains
PS: Before joining steemit, I wrote it on quora