Bitcoin for Beginners in Fifteen Minutes – Bitcoin Magazine

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This is an opinion editorial by Mark Maraia, author of “Rainmaking Made Simple” and Holly Young, a builder within the Portuguese Bitcoin community.

We have all been there. You are at a social event and a friend, acquaintance or relative approaches you and says “you were into bitcoin, right?” You know you only have a short attention span to give them insight and pique their interest. So how can you give them an intelligible view of such a complex and multi-faceted subject?

Here are some ideas to choose from for the next time you find yourself in this situation!

Centralization is the enemy of ownership

Any centralized currency can be taken from you in two ways. This can be done directly, by simply taking it out of your bank account, as happened in Greece when people lost 20% of everything in their account to a government haircut in 2015 and 16, or by cutting off your access to your own assets, as has been the case. has just been shown by America and the UK doing this to Russian companies or individuals during the current crisis in relations around Ukraine. Second, because all of our fiat currencies are centralized, this can be done by inflation – the government simply prints more money, which means whatever you have in your bank account will lose value – depriving you as well of your purchasing power.

Bitcoin is a new type of digital currency that will never be issued or controlled by any company or government. It’s a new form of money, unlike anything we’ve ever seen before, and it’s a 21st century hedge against inflation and central bank money printing. Unlike the US dollar, it is a digital asset with proven scarcity and backed by a wall of real-world crypto energy. These coins reached parity with the US dollar ten years ago and are now worth 20,000 times more than the dollar.

Because it is both rare and totally decentralized, it is deflationary and no one can take it away from you as long as you keep it in storage that is not connected to the internet.

What is bitcoin?

The term bitcoin can actually mean two things: bitcoin the asset (currently worth 20,000 times more than USD) and bitcoin the network that is growing faster than the internet or Facebook or Amazon. Bitcoin the asset travels along digital rails (a shared distributed ledger where a record of all Bitcoin transactions are kept) that are decentralized across tens of thousands of devices and computers. This digital asset is a 21st century savings technology that uses military-grade encryption and allows you to store value and wealth on a smartphone or hardware device called a wallet.

It allows those who buy it to store the fruits of their labor (or life force) and their wealth using software, mathematics and energy that is almost impossible to steal directly or indirectly (for inflation). Once you learn the language of bitcoin, you realize that anyone holding government-issued currency (that is, all of us) watches their wealth melt away like an ice cube in the sun as the value fiat inflates, and hyperinflated when measured against bitcoin. Anyone who cares about retaining their wealth in the future (and that should be all of us, especially those of us who have kids and intend to leave them a legacy) needs to wake up and smell the coffee. Fiat currencies are rapidly losing their value, and although Bitcoin is still volatile, there is every indication that it will retain its value over the long term.

The Bitcoin network has never been hacked

At 13 years old. The Bitcoin network is rock solid.

How Bitcoin works in a nutshell

Bitcoin runs on a blockchain. As its name suggests, a blockchain is made up of blocks. Each time a new block is confirmed, it is added to the blockchain. Bitcoin blocks are confirmed by computers known as miners and each time a miner solves the math problem that confirms a block, they get a reward in new Bitcoin, a process written in the original Bitcoin code. It takes a lot of energy and it is the system that protects the Bitcoin blockchain.

Bitcoin mining is the energy-intensive process that creates new coins and maintains a log of all transactions made on the bitcoin network since its inception. Bitcoin miners take energy from the real world (locked in and renewable) and convert it into monetary energy that will outlive your grandchildren. The more power bitcoin miners consume, the more secure and tamper-proof the network becomes.

The protocol has a fixed supply schedule that emits 6.25 coins into the network roughly every 10 minutes. In 2024, the issuance of supply will be halved to 3,125 coins every 10 minutes.

Each time a Bitcoin transaction is made, it is recorded in the next block. Once this block is confirmed and added to the blockchain, it can never be deleted.

Who Uses Bitcoin?

More and more individuals are using Bitcoin. It was estimated that in the first half of 2021, the number of people using Bitcoin increased by just under 165 per minute (“How fast is Bitcoin growing?”). It’s a lot of people and a lot of growth.

Bitcoin is the first and only digital asset to be legal tender by a nation state. Bitcoin is the first and only asset in history to be named a primary cash reserve asset by a Fortune 500 company, Microstrategy, an intelligence software firm.

Here’s what their CEO, Michael Saylor, had to say about it:

“We converted our balance sheet from a depreciating asset to an appreciating asset. So we have two companies. One is the enterprise software business and the other is the digital property business. So why did we do it? Defensively, I don’t want to lose money or destroy the value of the company. Wealth is destroyed. The second stage is opportunistic, we could buy a high quality property. Digital ownership is better than analog ownership. The third step is strategic. It’s a good idea to buy Cyber ​​Manhattan before everyone moves here. If bitcoin appreciates 100% per year and I can borrow fiat at 5%, my arbitrage is 95%. Why wouldn’t I? »

There is a lot of negativity about Bitcoin in the press

If we look at history, it’s quite rare for a king to be knocked down from his throne by a newcomer without a bit of a fight. The fiat banking system has been king almost since its invention by the Medici. It’s not going to go smoothly. The fiduciary system has been able to dictate the terms and its employees benefit massively. Until Bitcoin came along, the upstart King Arthur who, against all odds, pulled the sword from the stone. And do central banks and governments like it? They don’t.

This is one of the main reasons central bankers attack and spread untruths about bitcoin.

What are these lies? It is not supported by anything. It wastes energy. It’s volatile. It is controlled by billionaires. It has no practical use. It is mainly used by criminals and terrorists. It’s a Ponzi scheme.

Waste. Bitcoin has the potential to disrupt the current status quo – hence why it is so maligned by those currently holding the microphone.

You can buy a fraction of a bitcoin

Of course, most of us don’t have 20,000 odd dollars lying around to buy a whole bitcoin. One Bitcoin is divided into one hundred million Satoshis – which means you can invest $10 in Bitcoin as a starting investment, if you wish.

“Bitcoin is our peaceful weapon of choice against central bank-driven time theft.” —Ross Stevens

“Bitcoin is a currency for the people backed by the people.” —Sylvain Laurier

This is a guest post by Mark Maraia and Holly Young. The opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

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