Recently, the name "bitcoin" has been increasingly appearing in economic news bulletins. What is it?
The name "Bitcoin" is derived from the formation of two English words. "Bit" is a bit (unit of information) and "coin" is a coin. Thus, "bitcoin" is a virtual currency. The idea of digital money was described at the end of the decade before last. The system itself was launched in 2009. The name of the author (or group of the author) is Satoshi Nakamoto.
This currency has no centralized administration. Leading economic powers (USA, Germany) do not give official recognition of the existence of "Bitcoin". Currency is called a variant of "private money" (non-state assets for various subjects of financial transactions).
Transactions that are made using this currency cannot be tracked. A cryptosystem (encryption system) with public keys is used. Leading information security experts could not find vulnerabilities in the system.
With Bitcoin, you can make purchases at various online stores that allow you to use digital currency for payment. Moreover, "Bitcoin" is also notable for the fact that its real financial exchange rate is constantly changing. For example, at the beginning of December 2013, one currency unit was worth $ 576, and in November of the same year - $ 1,000. Such fluctuations are very attractive to investors.