Today is the Day! A Quick Read - if you are on the plane, on the road, or somewhere in between this is a good book for your digest. To understand Bitcoins, we must first understand cryptocurrency. What exactly is cryptocurrency, you might ask? Well, if you think about it, currency is basically just a system of money that people use. And how exactly would we know how much money people have? All money requires data entries or entered information in a computer system that tells us how much we have spent and saved from our everyday lives. The Internet and contemporary technology constantly upgrading, cryptocurrencies are now possible. Money has now moved online, and completely new systems of money now thrive on the world wide web. Cryptocurrency is digital money that requires a code to access – making it secure and mostly anonymous. The computers convert your information about monetary transactions, sales, and balances into computer codes that are nearly impossible to crack or break, making it harder to hack and easier to track your money if something somehow goes awry. This is what makes cryptocurrencies safe – even though it is Internet dependent! How does this currency differ from the one we have now? Well, government money, such as the dollar bill, operates on a gold standard. This means that you can trade your cash for gold, according to the United States government (though you will probably never know if they have enough gold to cover supplies). t is a completely transparent form of currency. People who use the currency, who volunteer to be a “miner,” or check on other Bitcoin users, keep a record of every transaction made, ensuring honesty. This new currency has been growing since the late 2000s, and many people wonder about the genius behind the concept. Who thought this concept up? Well, it is none other than the anonymous guy known by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. He most likely remained anonymous to protect his own identity and to promote the product without the risk of harassment for creating an unsafe currency. Satoshi Nakamoto is presumed to be three people who just happened to file a patent a couple of months before the official release of Bitcoin. Their names were Neal Kin, Vladimir Oksman, and Charles Bry, all of whom deny involvement with either Bitcoin or the Satoshi pseudonym.