O que é Bitcoin? is digital money that enables seamless peer-to-peer transactions across the Internet. It was created (by a person or group who remains anonymous to this day) as a way for people to exchange value without the need for a trusted third party, such as a bank or payment processor. Bitcoin removes those gatekeepers from the transaction process, enabling transfers to happen more quickly and cheaply than traditional methods, especially for international payments.
Bitcoin and Blockchain: Understanding the Relationship
When a person or business receives a Bitcoin payment, they store it in a special app called a ‘digital wallet’ on their computer or smartphone. They can then use that wallet to spend their Bitcoins on online purchases, or transfer them to other people. Each Bitcoin has a unique address that can be publicly disclosed, and which links to the private key associated with that Bitcoin wallet. The Bitcoin network uses cryptography to verify transactions and record them in a public ledger, known as the blockchain.
Once a Bitcoin transaction is confirmed, it can’t be reversed – by you, your banks, the president of the United States or whoever else. This is what gives Bitcoin its value. Bitcoin is also fungible – it can be divided up into smaller units, called’satoshis’. It is portable – you can move your Bitcoins between digital wallets on different devices and share them with friends, just like email addresses. And it is secure – cryptography makes it impossible to hack into or steal from your digital wallet, and it would take the best computers on Earth longer than the universe has existed to break its encryption.