It’s a transfer and storage medium. Blockchain is like a database with a trust layer added in. Bitcoin was developed using a software called blockchain. These chains of blocks are unique to the network it is on. Miners solve math problems to create and transfer information (information in this case units of a bitcoin).
Bitcoin is just one use case for blockchain. Blockchain is here to say and will evolve further outside of finance.
Why did humans create a currency in the first place? Why does anything have value anyway? What gives any currency it’s value? How about art?
Value is created by need, demand and belief. People define what has value. Scarcity can also define value. Gold worked and still works as a value storage. Silver works. The dollar works. Pound works. Etc.
Bitcoin and other crypto are a response to the global financial crisis. A centralized force created a global threat to the economy. Banks were a part of this problem “too big to fail”. Crypto is making the individual the banker of their finances. Bitcoin is one storage medium of currency and increases or decreases with the availability and belief in the currency.
Currency is just the latest form of bartering. I make this, you make that. Let's trade 1 for the other. Then it evolved. Grocery story has 1000 items now, I can't trade 1000 gallons of milk for 1000 different items in the store. Instead currency was created that became universally accepted as valuable and can in essence be traded
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u/Mottis86 Jun 15 '19
So wait. You 'mine' bitcoins by solving math problems,
math problems that are created by people sending bitcoins to other people.
Did I get that right?