What is Bitcoin
Bitcoin was created in 2008 by an anonymous person, or group of people, known as Satoshi Nakamoto. Their vision was to create an electronic version of cash that would be secure, stable, trusted and trackable, all without the need for a central bank such as the Reserve Bank.
So, instead of being managed by a central financial institution and banks, bitcoin as a currency is decentralised, meaning it is operated by a network of thousands of computers across the world, each one working to verify, cross-reference and process transactions on the network.
These computers create a common record of all transactions on the network – known as the blockchain – which makes bitcoin extremely difficult to dupe or interfere with. It also means there is a public, immutable record of all bitcoin transactions, though buyers and sellers are completely anonymous.
