I am listening to Bitcoin baron by Ytcracker. He’s rapping about Bitcoin and doing a good job at it too. When you listen word for word you get a lot of education out of it. Let me stop myself here, since I’m going off topic. I’ll be looking to talk about nerdy rappers another time, but today I want to talk exclusively about Bitcoin.

I thought it won’t be bad to bring it up for those who don’t know too much about the subject. With Bitcoin there is no stupid question, oh wait there is only one. The only stupid question to ask in relation to this, is the question you didn’t ask.

I will do so as simplistically as possible with no jargons, and hopefully with a few rap lines from Ytcracker. I am not a Bitcoin evangelist, I would just like to spread knowledge.

What you have wanted to know 

Bitcoin is a digital currency that serves as a means for paying for goods and services that unlike other currencies has no central authority.

Ytcracker says “long gone is the cash in the mattress but its tied up in hashes in encrypted badges”, because he now has “wallet data”.

What does all this mean?
Currencies such as the Dollar, Pound, and Yen are watched over by their independent national banks. Even the more regional currencies such as the Euro have a controlling body.
The effects of having a controlling authority means that these authorities are able to put into force certain financial restrictions, even the devaluation of a currency. Now with a currency that has no central authority it means that the value of this currency, that is a Bitcoin, is controlled by the forces of demand and supply.

How is it written?
Whiles the Dollar is denoted as $, Bitcoins are denoted with BTC. That is one Bit coin will be written as BTC 1.

How can I have a Bitcoin?
Bit coins can be obtained via a process called mining. Just like the term mining, it refers to where users try to create Bit coins. They could also seek out holders of Bitcoin amounts.

They then obtain these Bitcoins by an exchange of some means. They might exchange money, goods or services, just like batter trade.

Currently there are several sites who offer services for Bitcoins, and many more are joining the train.

How much is a Bitcoin ?
The value of a Bit coin at any point in time depends on the law of supply and demand work on it.
Use the analogy of gold bars. If there were more gold bars, then it will be less valuable as against if there were less of it. And that is it is why 1 gold bar is so expensive. Consequently, the actual value of a Bitcoin changes by the minute. One minute it could be this and the next minute it would change.

Why should I care?
Well apart from staying in the know about what is happening, we should all care for the following reasons:
It is secured against fraud;
There are unfortunately fake currencies circulating in trade. With Bit coin however, the amount of cryptography that is passes through reduces that to nil.

Ytcracker says it this way, “Create an address and then create a sequel.” Which puts it lyrically appropriately.

It is another means of payment:
With it becoming more and more popular, your customers may want to pay in Bit coin. And if you don’t have it what happens? You either lose clients, or wish you read this post on Bit coin earlier?

An interesting way to invest:
Ytcracker does not want “the NSA all up in the ***”. The line showed a different way of saving few may have thought of.
With the ability of a Bit coin to change in value from one second to the next, it is an interesting way to increase capital. You could buy some Bit coins when the value is low and cash out when it reaches a high enough valuation in your sight.

I’ll end with Ytcracker’s words using Bitcoin is some “nerdy living” because it is “scaring the status quo” against conventional savings.

Thanks for your time. Do share, tweet, or like this post if it was alright. Later.