January 22, 2026

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What is [BTC]? – Hansel – Medium

What is [BTC]? – Hansel – Medium

The following is a “choose-your-own-adventure” guide to understand Bitcoin. When you are a general user, you may not care to know exactly how credit cards work or even your phone. As an early adopter or investor in Bitcoin, you don’t have the fallback to trust the crowd.

Bitcoin explained

In 5 seconds:
Bitcoin is a digital currency where transactions happen on a special network.

In 30 seconds:
Bitcoin is a digital currency where transactions happen on a special network. This network is made up of hundreds of thousands of computers all running the same special communication program. The program is special because it can protect the network from bad actors. Because of this, the network functions without the backing of any government or “trusted” entity to support it.

In 5 minutes:
Bitcoin is a digital currency where transactions happen on a special network. This network is made up of hundreds of thousands of computers all running the same special communication program. This communication between computers is special because whenever a new transaction is broadcast to the network, it appends the transaction that previously came before it. Each transaction sent through the network is a block of code that gets added to all of the previous blocks of code that have been submitted. This is where the name “blockchain” comes from.

Computers on the blockchain have mathematical proof that no one is cheating the system.

Whenever a new transaction is broadcast to the blockchain, every computer connected to the blockchain checks all previous transaction history to confirm the latest information sent makes sense with the previous records. If you try to send a transaction that falsely states you have more coins in your wallet than are actually there, the rest of the computers processing new transactions on the blockchain will reject it. With a public ledger where all account balances and transactions are visible to each participant, the blockchain provides trust and security in sending digital assets between two perfect strangers.

Published at Mon, 07 Jan 2019 00:45:14 +0000

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