Bitcoins are a form of money. They can be used as a medium of exchange and they’re sometimes used as a unit of account, but they have no store of value. As a form of money, bitcoins are very similar to other widely used currencies such as the US dollar. Bitcoins are different from the US dollar in the way they are created, used, and exchanged.
A record of all bitcoin transactions are kept on a decentralized public ledger called a blockchain. Bitcoins are stored on addresses and the blockchain itself is maintained by miners. When miners contribute to maintaining the blockchain records, they earn bitcoins in return. This reward provides miners with an incentive to contribute computing resources to maintaining the bitcoin blockchain.
If you want some bitcoins, there are a few ways you can get them, but the easiest way is to buy them. You can buy bitcoins by using an online bitcoin exchange or bitcoin broker. In Canada, an easy way to purchase bitcoins is on a website called QuickBT or an exchange called QuadrigaCX.
Once you’ve purchased some bitcoins, what can you do with them? Bitcoins are not very useful as a way to buy consumer goods such as groceries or clothing. You’re probably better off using a currency more widely accepted as a medium of exchange in your country. But bitcoins can also be used as a way to conduct transactions and make investments online. One of the coolest things about bitcoins and other digital currencies is how they are outside the control of governments and can be used to conduct transactions relatively anonymously. Bitcoins can travel almost instantly across the world making them a truly global currency.
Bitcoins are a great currency for gambling, investing, and running online businesses, but if you’re not into any of these things, then you might as well just keep using whatever currency is popular in your day to day life. Its difficult for most people in American to see the appeal of bitcoins when the US dollar seems to work well enough. Most of us don’t question how the US dollar works either. But if you start to learn more about money, I hope you will see that bitcoins and other decentralized digital crypto currencies offer many opportunities.
