What is Bitcoin ?

What is Bitcoin:

• Bitcoin is a form of digital currency (Peer-to-Peer Currency or Crypto-Currency), created and held electronically. 
• No one controls it. Bitcoins aren’t printed, like dollars or euros – they’re produced by people, and increasingly businesses, running computers all around the world, using software that solves mathematical problems. (Data Mining)

• Bitcoin can be used to buy things electronically. In that sense, it’s like conventional dollars, euros, or yen, which are also traded digitally.
• However, major difference to conventional money, is that it is decentralized. No single institution controls the bitcoin network.
• There are an estimated 700 Bitcoin-like crypto-currencies 
• E.g. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, Monero, Dash, Augur, NEM, Waves etc

• Bitcoin uses Blockchain Technology and is just one implementation of Blockchain
• Bitcoin has been called “digital gold,” and for a good reason

Who Prints/Generates it?

• No one. This currency isn’t physically printed in the shadows by a central bank.
• It's not like conventional currency based on gold or silver. Bitcoin isn’t based on gold; it’s based on mathematics (Bitcoin Mining). I.e. Bitcoin is created digitally (Thru Bitcoin Mining), by a community of people that anyone can join. Bitcoins are ‘mined’, using computing power in a distributed network. 

Well you can certainly buy bitcoins on the open market, but you can also mine your own if you have enough computing power. After covering your initial investment in equipment and electricity, mining bitcoins is simply a case of leaving the machine switched on, and the software running and making bitcoins.

• Around the world, people are using software programs that follow a mathematical formula to produce bitcoins. The mathematical formula is freely available, so that anyone can check it.
• The software is also open source, meaning that anyone can look at it to make sure that it does what it is supposed to.

The bitcoin protocol – the rules that make bitcoin work – say that only 21 million bitcoins can ever be created by miners.

Bitcoin Characteristics?

1. Decentralized :The bitcoin network isn’t controlled by one central authority. Every machine that mines bitcoin and processes transactions makes up a part of the network, and the machines work together. That means that, in theory, one central authority can’t tinker with monetary policy and cause a meltdown
2. Easy Set-up: Unlike conventional banks which takes enough time to simply open a bank account. Setting up a bitcoin address in seconds, no questions asked, and with no fees payable.
3. Anonymous: Well, kind of. Users can hold multiple bitcoin addresses, and they aren’t linked to names, addresses, or other personally identifying information. However…
4. Transparent:  Bitcoin stores details of every single transaction that ever happened in the network in a huge version of a general ledger, called the blockchain. The blockchain tells all. If you have a publicly used bitcoin address, anyone can tell how many bitcoins are stored at that address. They just don’t know that it’s yours.
5. No/Minimal Charges: Your bank may charge you a £10 fee for international transfers. Bitcoin doesn’t.
6. Very Fast: You can send money anywhere and it will arrive minutes later, as soon as the bitcoin network processes the payment.
7. No Chargebacks/Fraud: Once bitcoins have been sent, they’re gone, no way of reversing the transaction. A person who has sent bitcoins cannot try to retrieve them without the recipient’s consent. This avoid frauds with credit cards, in which people make a purchase and then contact the credit card company to make a chargeback, effectively reversing the transaction.
8. Safe & Secure: Bitcoin is a relatively private currency. In conventional transactions, you know where transactions came from, and where they’re sent. However here, no one knows who holds a particular bitcoin address. Also Bitcoin transactions, don’t require you to give up any secret information. Instead, they use two keys: a public key, and a private one. Anyone can see the public key (which is actually your bitcoin address), but your private key is secret.
9. Not Inflationary: The problem with regular fiat currency is that governments can print as much of it as they like frequently (e.g to pay-off debt), and take newly created money and inject it into the economy, via a much-publicized process known as Quantitative Easing. This causes the value of a currency to decrease. I.e. If you suddenly double the number of dollars in circulation, then that means there are two dollars where before there was only one. Someone who had been selling/buyinh a chocolate bar for a dollar will have to double the price to make it worth the same as it was before, because a dollar suddenly has only half its value. This is called Inflation, and it causes the price of goods and services to increase and can decrease people’s buying power. Bitcoin was designed to have a maximum number of coins. Only 21 million will ever be created under the original specification. This means that after that, the number of bitcoins won’t grow, so inflation won’t be a problem. In fact, deflation – where the price of goods and services falls – is more likely in the bitcoin world.

Buying Bitcoin:

• You can buy bitcoins from either exchanges, or directly from other people via marketplaces.
• You can pay for them in a variety of ways, ranging from
• Hard cash 
• Credit/Debit cards
• Wire transfers, or
• With other cryptocurrencies
• Credit Cards: In the US, Coinbase, and Circle offer purchases with credit cards.
• Face-to-face, or 'Over-the-counter' (OTC): If you live in a city, prefer anonymity or don't want bank hassles, the easiest option to acquire bitcoin is to make a face-to-face trade with a local seller.
• Bitcoin ATMs: Though a relatively new concept, bitcoin ATMs are growing in number. Different vendors including BitAccess, CoinOutlet, Genesis Coin, Lamassu and Robocoin.

Bitcoin Wallets:

• After buying, you will need a place to store your new bitcoins. In the bitcoin world, they're called a 'wallet' but it might be best to think of them as a kind of bank account.
• Depending on the security levels you want, different wallets will provide different levels of security. The main options are: 
• Software wallet stored on the hard drive of your computer, 
• Online, web-based service or
• 'Vault' service that keeps your bitcoins protected

Ref: https://www.coindesk.com/information/how-can-i-buy-bitcoins/

Who accept Bitcoins as Payment:

Bitcoins are taking over the crypto-currency marketplace. They’re the largest and most well-known digital currency. Many large companies are accepting bitcoins as a legitimate source of funds. They allow their online products to be bought with bitcoins. Here is the list of companies accepting BitCoin as payment. Below is snapshot of buying thru BitCoin at Expedia:

Hope this helps!!

Arun Manglick