Bitcoin is decentralized online currency, created and held electronically which means that bitcoins aren’t printed, like dollars or euros. Bitcoin can be used to buy things online, and converted into your regular currency like dollars, pounds, euro, naira etc.
Bitcoin’s most important
characteristic, and the thing that makes it different to conventional money, is
that it is decentralized. No single institution controls the bitcoin network.
This puts people at ease, because it means that a large bank can’t control their
money.
A software developer called
Satoshi Nakamoto proposed bitcoin, which was an electronic payment system based
on mathematical proof. The idea was to produce a currency independent of any
central authority, transferable electronically, more or less instantly, with
very low transaction fees