The easy answers to the hard questions! WHAT IS BITCOIN?
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1 The easy answers to the hard questions! WHAT IS BITCOIN?
2 The easy answers to the hard questions! WHAT IS BITCOIN? Bitcoin is virtual cash that can be used among friends or between customers and merchants – anywhere ordinary money is spent or exchanged. It exists as digital information rather than physical money: Each bitcoin is a string of mathematically generated numbers. This sequence can be printed on a piece of paper or embedded in a coin, as a physical reminder, but it is the number, not the object (as in other currency), that has value. 1001010100100110010101010011010100100101010010100101
3 HOW DOES IT WORK? One simple explanation is that there is software for various access points, whether they are a computer or a smart phone. The idea is to transfer digital information between two digital wallets.
4 After downloading the requisite phone application, users follow the app’s instructions. Typically, a merchant has a QR code that can be scanned with a smart phone camera. This is his public address. The user sends Bitcoin, or BTC, using the app instructions. The user’s digital wallet then will show fewer BTC and, voilà, the merchant’s will show more.
5 IN THE BEGINNING… Bitcoin emerged in 2008 as the mathematical project of Satoshi Nakamoto, a pseudonym for. ? Essentially, it is a software code set up to generate Bitcoin. A process known as mining actually propagates the new numbers, and when the numbers are used, they are permanently stored in what is called the blockchain. If that sounds confusing, don’t worry. It is.
6 HOW DO YOU KNOW… The most common question is, “But how do you know how much it’s worth?” It’s like any other marketplace… Where there is a demand, or other extenuating circumstance prices are typically high. Take a look at cigarettes, in New York you would be lucky to get a pack of premium brand smokes for $15, but here in Texas they are only around $7 and in West Virginia, less than $5.00 With no governing authority or central bank in the way there are no set prices or artificial inflations by the random injection of currency into the system. This also means no debilitating fixed exchange fees or excessively high transaction fees.
7 “But it’s just a computer program, so someone writes a virus and wipes it all out!” Yes and no. While you can certainly be the victim of theft when it comes to Bitcoin, just like cash, It has never happened by hacking the core code. And believe me, they have tried! At this point in time the only real way it could happen is through what is called a 51% attack.
8 In the most basic of terms a 51% attack would mean someone amasses enough hashing power to comprise 51% or more of the total global hashing power. At that point they could attempt to inject erroneous calculations into the system to “magically” make Bitcoin appear. BUT, all transactions have to be validated by the network, so while this might work for a few seconds, ultimately the foreign coins would be rejected very quickly.
9 SO HOW DO YOU MAKE BITCOINS The original protocol calls for a top limit of 21 million bitcoins – and the first code allows new bitcoins to be created, or mined, at a rate that halves every four years until 21 million is reached. Miners use computing power to solve mathematical problems and are rewarded with bitcoins as they do. A hash or hash rate is a measurement of that computational power. While 21 million coins doesn’t seem like a lot each coin can be divided To the 8 th decimal meaning you can pay someone with.00000001 BTC Which allows for a currency well into the trillions which can easily support a global economy.
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Bitcoin: Why It Matters. An introductory presentation
Transcription and slides of a ten minute presentation I gave for a course in a first-year computer science program.
Today, I’m going to be talking about why Bitcoin matters.
On January 3 2009, an anonymous programmer using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto released some open-source software that would eventually make him, or her, or even them, the most anonymous billionaire on earth. What Satoshi made was a protocol for the world’s first viable cryptocurrency called Bitcoin.
You’ve probably heard of bitcoin in the news at least once in the past year and it probably had something to do with the price; how it’s gone up 100% in the past few months and then down 70% in the past few weeks. It’s easy to get fixated on the price but underneath it, there’s a reason Bitcoin is getting so much attention.
It’s not just regular people who are interested in Bitcoin. These are all real quotes: you have Eric Schmidt of Google and Alphabet, Bill Gates, Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Steve Woz from Apple and many more. Clearly, there are some pretty smart and influential people interested in Bitcoin. What about Bitcoin is exciting all of these people?
To answer that question, we first have to understand what Bitcoin is. Bitcoin is the world’s first successful cryptocurrency, which means it only exists digitally; there’s no such thing as a physical bitcoin. Bitcoin has no central point of failure; it does not rely on any central figure or server. It uses a decentralized system to operate and verify transactions. And it leverages the power of the internet to enable quick and cheap payments and cryptography to secure the network.
I said that Bitcoin is the world’s first successful cryptocurrency because there had been past attempts at cryptocurrencies and they all used the internet and cryptography to function but they still failed for one reason: they were centralized, meaning they needed a central authority to operate, to verify transactions, and a central authority can be hacked, coerced, corrupted, manipulated. And so these early systems never took off.
The misconception is that the main benefits of Bitcoin are it allows one to send money quickly and cheaply. While those are nice features of Bitcoin, they aren’t the main reasons for Bitcoin’s value. Bitcoin’s unique selling proposition is that it is decentralized. No single entity controls Bitcoin; Bitcoin is effectively controlled by its users, who all agree on a set of consensus rules as to how the network should operate. And if you go against these rules, you get rejected by the network. Another decentralized application or protocol you might know is BitTorrent, which allows users to share files in a peer-to-peer manner, without the need for a central server.
Bitcoin achieves decentralization through the use of its blockchain. The most simple definition of a blockchain is it is a distributed ledger. It’s a ledger, which means it records who owns which bitcoins at any given time and it’s distributed, which means it’s not stored on any central server. The blockchain is stored on over a hundred thousand computers worldwide called nodes and each node validates transactions. When you create a Bitcoin transaction, it will begin to propagate across the entire network. If it is a fraudulent transaction, it will get rejected by a node and fail to propagate. You’ve probably heard about mining. Miners essentially perform many complex mathematical calculations which serves to secure the network and they are compensated in Bitcoin.
The entire point of a blockchain is that it allows for the trustless transfer of value. For the first time in history, two parties can now transfer value between each other without having to know each other, trust each other — and they shouldn’t trust each other if they don’t know each other — or any other third party.
Why is the internet useful? The internet is useful because it allows us to transfer data from one point to the next, quickly and cheaply, in an open and accessible manner. And because of that, we can do so many things: we can communicate and exchange ideas and information freely and easily, we can build so many applications on top of the internet, we can learn pretty much anything we want to know using the internet. Well, Bitcoin does the same thing to value. Now, two humans anywhere on earth, no matter who they are or where they come from, can now engage in an economic transaction and transfer value between each other, quickly and with minimal fees and, most importantly, no one can stop them. That is an extremely powerful concept.
There are a set of properties something must have to be considered an effective form of money. It must be divisible, fungible (meaning each unit must be interchangeable), portable, durable, acceptable and limited in supply. Note that there is no requirement that money be controlled or backed by a government. There is a misconception that money refers only to banknotes and coins, things issued by governments. But the fundamental definition of money is anything used as a medium of exchange, to represent the transfer of value. Bitcoin is a form of money and it meets all of these criteria.
Actually, an argument can be made as to why governments shouldn’t have control over money. Quantitative easing is when governments print money to increase the money supply and buy financial assets, in the hopes of stimulating the economy. However, this results in the loss of purchasing power for the currency. The U.S. has been doing it for a while but it’s not the first time in history governments have abused this power. In 11th century China, when the world’s first banknote was introduced, everything initially worked out fine. But as there were no regulations, the government proceeded to print out so much banknotes that they became worthless and merchants stopped accepting them. On the other hand, only 21 million bitcoins will ever be created.
When nations pursue geopolitical interests, it often results in turmoil for the national currency, typically benefiting the few people at the top at the expense of everyone else. For example, when Russia annexed Crimea and sent its military to Ukraine, the Russian ruble dropped 50% in value over the next couple of years due to international sanctions placed on Russia. People who had their savings in rubles saw the value of their savings plummet. Bitcoin is a global currency which knows no borders and so it is not tied to any one country’s economy.
That is a stack of Venezuelan bolivar banknotes next to a banana. At the time the photo was taken, this entire stack of banknotes was worth $20 and because of rising food prices, it could maybe get you a carton of eggs and some bananas. In Venezuela, it is difficult to acquire foreign currencies because of restrictions imposed by the government so it must be done illegally. Before 2009, Venezuelans would have had only two options. They can keep using the bolivar, which has lost 99.9% of its value over the past few years or they can use a foreign currency, such as the U.S. dollar, which will get confiscated if they are caught buying it in appreciable amounts. But now, they have a third option: they can use this new, experimental, digital currency called Bitcoin, which isn’t controlled by or subject to the whims of any incompetent, tyrannical government and can’t be physically confiscated. And we are seeing this happen in Venezuela where a black market has popped up, not just for the U.S. dollar but also for Bitcoin.
What does the future hold for Bitcoin?
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of other cryptocurrencies but most of them are poor imitators. Like I said earlier, the whole point of Bitcoin is that it is decentralized but many of these other cryptocurrencies aren’t decentralized at all.
Bitcoin is continually innovating and improving. The people working on Bitcoin are incredible, world-class developers. In the long run, an open-innovation system always wins against a closed-innovation system. An example of a closed-innovation system is the current financial system, wherein if you had an idea for a payment processing app and you wanted to start a company, you would have to apply for a bunch of permits and licenses; basically, you have to ask for permission just to innovate and they may not even grant you that permission. Whereas in an open-innovation system like Bitcoin, if you wanted to build an app using Bitcoin or the Bitcoin blockchain, you just do it.
Even if you aren’t interested in Bitcoin as money, as future workers in IT, you should still be interested because it’s one of the fastest growing fields out there, especially here in Vancouver, where the largest Canadian cryptocurrency exchange is based. Bitcoin has garnered interest from many major institutions and of course, there are also many smaller companies and startups.
I’m going to end with this quote. It’s an old Chinese proverb. A lot of people think that they ‘missed the boat’ on Bitcoin. But it’s an emerging technology and industry and it’s never too late to start learning about it and to get involved in it.
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What is Bitcoin?
What is Bitcoin?. A Worldwide Digital Currency that is decentralized and not controlled by any government or institution. Bitcoin is sent using the Internet directly from person to person with no bank or intermediary Bitcoin is a Fast, Safe and Anonymous way to send money
What is Bitcoin?
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What is Bitcoin? • A Worldwide Digital Currency that isdecentralized and not controlled by any government or institution. • Bitcoin is sent using the Internet directly from person to person with no bank or intermediary • Bitcoin is a Fast, Safe and Anonymous way to send money • Anyone can set up a Bitcoin account (No Qualifications) • No Fees, No Chargebacksand No Borders Bitcoin is the FUTURE of MONEY!!
How Does Bitcoin Work? • Anyone can purchase Bitcoin from a Bitcoin exchange using dozens of different currencies and payment methods to buy and sell it. (localbitcoins.com) • Bitcoin is sent from person to person similar to how paypal works with an email. All you need is a BTC address to send to and it will arrive instantly • Bitcoin relies on miners who verify all transactions that are sent. • Bitcoin is traded on the open market so there is always a real value determined
Who Uses Bitcoin? • Over 100,000 Business in the US and estimated 500,000 worldwide • Growing fast as more merchants accept it daily (its easy to set up) • There are no refunds, chargebacks or fees to accept bitcoin and the money is received instantly when sent (Soon it will be everywhere)
Is Bitcoin Safe? • Yes, Bitcoin is designed with privacy and security in mind with all transactions happening anonymously so there is no personal information exchanged. • Every transaction must be verified by the Bitcoin mining network before being validated • Bitcoin uses 2 keys… • 1 Private Key (only available to owner of wallet) • 1 Public Key (used by miners to verify the public ledger)
What is Bitcoin Mining? • Everyone who uses Bitcoin becomes part of the bank of Bitcoin • Miners use special software to solve math problems that verify all transactions and they are rewarded with newly issued Bitcoin in exchange for using their computing power • As more miners come online, the network gets more secure and the math gets harder • Bitcoin would not work without miners
What Are Mining Pools? • It’s nearly impossible for individuals to mine because the math is getting so hard to solvethat it takes massive computing power to work • The Solution… Mining Pools! People can share in the profits by pooling together their resources and splitting up the Bitcoin that is mined • There are no limits or restrictions on how big a pool can get or how one is set up.
What is BitClub Network? • We make Bitcoin Simple! • We are a team of experts, professionals and programmers who set up this membership to help the average person cash in on Bitcoin. • Gain exclusive access to our mining projects and other Bitcoin opportunities Lifetime Membership Only $99
**Bitcoin has Sparked a Digital Coin Revolution** Crypto Currencies • There are OVER 400 Digital Currencies (also called Crytpo Currencies) • Litecoin, Dogecoin, and Blackcoin are a few of the big ones • Some of these coins are a lot more profitable to mine based on the industry. • With BitClub we give you full access to our proprietary software that allows us to mine for dozens of other crypto currencies and exchange them into Bitcoin.
BitClub Mining Software • We have built our own proprietary software that controls mining hardware. • We use real time data to analyze Crypto Currencies to see which coin is the most profitable to mine, then we allocate our hardware to mine for it *This Software Creates MORE PROFIT For Everyone*
Pool #1 = $500/Share BitClub Mining Pools • Purchase a share for $500 USD • Get paid daily from your share of total mining profits (everyday) • Each share will pay 50% in profits with the other 50% being used to re-purchase more shares in this mining pool. (fractional shares issued daily)
Pool #2 = $1,000/Share BitClub Mining Pools • Purchase a share for $1,000 USD • Get paid daily from your share of total mining profits (everyday) • Each share will pay 60% in profits with the other 40% being used to re-purchase more shares in this mining pool. (fractional shares issued daily)
Pool #3 = $2,000/Share BitClub Mining Pools • Purchase a share for $2,000 USD • Get paid daily from your share of total mining profits (everyday) • Each share will pay 70% in profits with the other 30% being used to re-purchase more shares in this mining pool. (fractional shares issued daily)
BitClub Referral Network • Get Paid in Bitcoin by referring other members • There are 4 ways to earn commissions… • Binary commissions paid on all volume • 2 level Matching Bonus • Level-up Bonus structure paid on entire network • Global Founders Pool (Limited Time) • With BitClub you can earn a percentage of all the Bitcoin being mined and paid out to your personal network • All commissions are paid daily in Bitcoin (almost instantly) Earn Daily Profits from Bitcoin Mining
Binary Tree All new people you introduce to BitClub will be placed on your LEFT Teamor RIGHT TEAM of your binary tree depending on your placement settings • For every 20 Credits on your Left + 20 Credits on your Right you earn a one time $400 bonus • Mining Pool # 1 = 1 Credit • Mining Pool # 2 = 2 Credits • Mining Pool # 3 = 4 Credits • *The most you can cycle is 1 time per day Binary Pays Through Infinite Levels
Matching Bonuses Double Matching Bonus Paid on each cycle • You earn $50 each time one of your personally enrolled members completes a cycle in the Binary • Plus, you earn another $50 each time one of your 2nd generation members completes a cycle • Each cycle pays $100 matching bonus to upline • No daily, weekly, or monthly maximum • No qualifications to earn this match Help YOUR TEAM Cycle and Get Paid More!
The First TWO (1,2) people you enroll will be placed on Team #1 Level-up Team Infinity Bonus 1 2 • Earn 15% on whatever these team members purchase. This commission is paid on FULL Shares as well as Partial Shares purchases from the mining pools • Everyone who enrolls below these two people will Level-up to the qualified upline members and pay extra commissions up.
The next THREE (3,4,5) people you enroll will be placed on Team # 2 Level-up Team Infinity Bonus 2 1 3 4 5 20% 20% 15% 5% 2 1 • Earn 20% on whatever these three team members purchase. This commission is paid on FULL Shares and Partial Shares purchased from the mining pools • You also earn a 5% Level-up Bonus on all of their first TWO personally sponsored people and all of their first TWO personals, and so on through INFINITY!
The next THREE (6,7,8)people you enroll will be placed on Team # 3 Level-up Team Infinity Bonus 25% 25% 4 3 2 1 5 20% 15% 8 7 6 4 5 1 2 3 10% 5% • Earn 25% on whatever these three team members purchase. • You also earn a 10% Level-up Bonus on all of their first TWO personally sponsored people and all of their first TWO personals, and so on through INFINITY! • You also earn a 5% Level-up Bonus on all of those people’s 3rd, 4th, and 5th personally sponsored people and so on through INFINITY!
The 9th person and beyond that you enroll will be placed on Team # 4 Level-up Team Infinity Bonus 27.5% 4 3 2 6 7 8 1 5 20% 15% 25% 9+ 4 5 1 2 6 7 3 8 12.5% 7.5% 2.5% • Earn 27.5% on whatever these three team members purchase. • You also earn a 12.5% Level-up Bonus on all of their first TWO personally sponsored people and all of their first TWO personals, and so on through INFINITY! • You also earn a 7.5% Level-up Bonus on all of those people’s 3rd, 4th, and 5th personally sponsored people and so on through INFINITY! • You also earn a 2.5% Level-up Bonus on all of those people’s 6th, 7th, and 8th personals
Level-up Team Infinity Bonus 27.5% 9+ When anyone that you sponsor into your level 4 team gets to their own level 4 (they enroll 9 and more) you will receive a 2.5% level up bonus on all of their personally sponsored level 4 share purchases. And you will also receive a 2.5% level up bonus on all of those peoples first 8, first 8, first 8 and so on through infinity.
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