All About Bitcoins

Founded in 2009, Bitcoin is a digital currency that is not issued by any central bank or other centralized authority but by an open source software through a process called ‘mining’. Globally, there are over 11 million Bitcoins in circulation worth over $1.2 billion.Over 80% of Bitcoins today are traded on a Tokyo-based digital currency exchange called Mt. Gox. At present, India does not have a centralized Bitcoin exchange, but users in India can buy and sell coins through websites such as localbitcoins.com. The community here is believed to be some 50,000-strong, with as many as 23,000 India based users having an online Bitcoin wallet where the digital currency is stored.

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, Cyrptocurrency is a form of digital currency used over the internet for trading or payment for services. The currency is finite in number to keep inflation rates low and uses peer-to-peer transfer technology. It is encrypted using cryptography for security and hence cannot be easily counterfeited. It can be transferred from a computer or a smartphone to another anonymously and cannot be tracked. The value of such a currency is usually determined by supply and demand — similar to precious metals like gold. Read more of this post