Bitcoin is a form of digital currency, created and held electronically. They aren’t printed, like rupees or dollars. Bitcoin is created digitally, by a community of people that anyone can join. Bitcoins are ‘mined’, using computing power in a distributed network.
It is also known as crypto currency.
A bitcoin can be sent from one person to another, but without a central bank or the government attempting to track it. To control the creation of currency, it depends upon cryptography. The system depends on cryptography to control the creation of the currency.
Since no authority controls the generation of the coins or tracks them, the system itself is designed in such a way that the network maintains a foolproof system of the record of every transaction.
To send bitcoins digitally to anyone, one should have a bitcoin. One person could have multiple addresses for different purposes, say personal, business and the like. It depends upon a technology called ‘block chain technology.’
One bitcoin is worth roughly about $1,200 now. An early investor in Snapchat has been quoted on the Web as saying that by 2030, the value could be as high as $500,000.
And unlike traditional currency that is inflationary in nature, the bitcoin is a deflationary currency.
The government on April 12, 2017 has set up a committee to look into ways of regulating the bitcoins over the concerns of its adverse impacts.
Bitcoins have been banned in several countries on grounds that these currencies could be used for money laundering or financing terrorism.