Outro

Before we bring everything together here to finally answer the question "What is Bitcoin?", I want to congratulate you on finishing this journey. Whether you understood everything we have discussed or only picked up some of the general ideas, you now know so much more about one of the most fascinating new technologies of our lifetime. Whether you yourself will start using Bitcoin or not, you are able to make a better judgement about what this new money can mean to our world and the billions of people in it.

I truly hope you enjoyed the content and you feel like this was worth your time. If you do, and definitely also if you didn't, please do let me know. You can reach out directly to me on twitter @vvdhout. I want this journey to improve over time and make it more community driven, ensuring it will stay up to date and balanced. If you have suggestions on how to improve it, whether it is correcting small errors, or suggestions for new or replacement content, please check out the Contribute page to learn more about how you can help. And lastly, here you can find some ways to support me if you wish to do so: Support me.

Let us wrap this all up. Thank you again for your time.

What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is the very first publicly available digital commodity money. It is a money that exists independent of any particular institution, government, or organization, and lives outside of their control. It is openly accessible to anybody in the world, regardless of their background, sex, ethnicity, religion, or status. Everybody gets the exact same rules. No privileges.

Bitcoin cannot be taken down by virtue of its decentralized nature with users, nodes, and miners spread all over the world across many different jurisdictions. Bitcoins cannot be confiscated or frozen as the only person that has control over a public address is the owner of the associated private key. Its money supply and issuance is predefined and cannot be altered, protecting its holders from intentional debasement by centralized issuers. As long as there is internet access, bitcoin transactions cannot be censored or stopped, and even without internet there are methods of transacting bitcoin. It allows the transfer of value directly between two people without the need for permission or trust, whether they are standing right across from each other or are on other sides of the globe.

It offers, for the first time, an alternative to digital currencies stored in banks and managed by central banks for which breaches of trust are directly impacting and harming the lives of millions of people around the world. It offers, at the right time, an alternative to Central Bank Digital Currencies that kick centralized control over money into overdrive, which can be dystopian depending on where or when you live.

With Bitcoin we have seen the rare creation of a new money.

A money not controlled by anybody, created for everybody.