What is Bitcoin?

What is Bitcoin?
Hello there, and welcome to HotNaija, your one-stop destination for the latest entertainment news, celebrity gossips and stories, lifestyle content, and cryptocurrency news. Today you'll discover what Bitcoin is and how today's most popular versions of Bitcoin differ from one another (BTC & BCH). So without any further ado, let's get started.

As its name suggests, Bitcoin is an electronic currency. But unlike government-issued currencies, there is no single entity that issues Bitcoin or is in charge of processing its transactions.

Before Bitcoin, it was impossible to make electronic payments without the help of a third party, like a bank or payment processor. Payments were often slow, expensive, and exclusive (not available to everyone).

To solve those problems, Bitcoin operates without a trusted third party. Instead, it works as a purely peer-to-peer electronic currency. Meaning, payments are transferred directly from one person to another.

How does that work? Simply put, computers worldwide use mathematical functions to independently verify all Bitcoin transactions, which are then added to a permanent public list of transactions called – "Blockchain."

The Blockchain is stored on all computers. It works as a universally secured record of who owns what (any kind of crypto).

Early on in Bitcoin's history, there were very few transactions being processed by the network, but as time went on, more and more people started using Bitcoin, and so the number of transactions to be processed went up too.

Eventually, the Bitcoin network needed to be updated to keep transactions fast, cheap, and reliable. But because there wasn't consensus on how this update should be performed or whether it should be implemented at all, Bitcoin ultimately had to split into two separate currencies for that update to happen.

The version that implemented the originally planned update is called – "Bitcoin Cash," which is listed on exchanges using the ticker symbol – "BCH."

Bitcoin Cash can currently process over 100 transactions per second, with fees reliably less than a penny per transaction.

The other version, which made further updates to the network, kept the name – "Bitcoin" with its original ticker symbol – "BTC."

Bitcoin can only process between 3 to 7 transactions per second and is now considered by many to be digital gold instead of digital cash. Its fees have ranged anywhere from several cents to tens of dollars per transaction, depending on the number of people trying to use the network at once.

CoinMarketCap:
Bitcoin price – $64,688
Rank – #1
Market capitalization – $1.22 T

Bitcoin Cash price – $669
Rank – #19
Market capitalization – $12.67 Bn

You can get started with Bitcoin or Bitcoin Cash today by downloading any crypto wallet app of your choice on the App Store/Play Store.

Make sure you check out our other blog posts for more information about the crypto market and trending entertainment headlines. Thanks for reading!
Alade Habeeb

I am a writer with a sense of creativity to write on multiple topics. I create engaging, thrilling and entertaining contents and I always take the time to edit my work well before publishing. I follow all the latest trends and read about recent happenings in the entertainment industry to always update my readers.

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