30 Jan 2014 / Huffington Post – Bitcoin is slowly but surely finding its way into our lexicon, our news reports, and maybe even our wallets. So what is Bitcoin? How does it work? How do you get Bitcoin? Should you be using it? Should you wait? What the hell are you talking about, Dayna?
According to the Bitcoin website, “Bitcoin is an innovative payment network and a new kind of money.” This answers only one of the above questions. For the rest of the answers, I turned to Bitcoin expert and author Christopher Carfi. Carfi’s new free downloadable ebook, Conversational Bitcoin: The Bitcoin basics you need to know, tries to answers all the questions.
As a start, here are five things you need to know about Bitcoin now:
1. Bitcoin is both a currency and a payment network: Merchants such as Overstock.com and the Sacramento Kings (and thousands of others) accept Bitcoin as a means of payment. There are dozens of new companies jumping on board and accepting the currency each day. The Bitcoin payment network is distributed globally, and is highly resistant to hacking and most other bad behavior.
2. Bitcoin is truly the first viable monetary system designed with the Internet in mind: Bitcoin was not created by any government or company. It was created as “open source” technology (meaning anyone can inspect the network’s code for flaws or vulnerabilities, and anyone can recommend improvements to the infrastructure). Additionally, anyone can send Bitcoins directly to anyone else; it’s a network like Skype or email that is able to transmit funds globally and nearly instantaneously for a fraction of what banks or other payment providers charge…. Read more
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dayna-steele/bit-who-5-things-you-need_b_4681022.html
