Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency, launched in January 2009.
Essentially not dependent on any central authority, it acts as a queen
cryptocurrency, even if its hegemony is constantly under threat.
Bitcoins are stored on electronic wallets, and are exchanged via
electronic addresses (in the form of
14WQpkR3jUIkpY2vB32PC4GYoWZ2vBdrV4), equivalent to bank account numbers.
They allow you to send and receive payments at very low costs compared
to FIAT currencies.
Both currency and payment system, it can be
used to exchange goods and services.
The value of a Bitcoin
depends only on supply and demand, not on the often very artificial
price that an issuing government - and often unreasonably indebted -
would have given it.
To date, it represents more than half of
the global capitalization of crypto currencies (more than $200 billion
in November 2018) and more than one-third of daily trade. It is
also worth noting that Bitcoin, like almost all crypto currencies,
defined, when it was introduced in 2009, a money supply ceiling that
will never be exceeded (21 million Bitcoins, not one more). And the
increase in the money supply until this glass ceiling is reached is done
The goal? Limit the risk of hyperinflation and thus protect
the scarcity of money, much like precious metals.
criticizing and wrongly accusing it of all evils, central bankers,
financial and political bankers would do better to take inspiration from it...