Commentary: 3 Reasons Bitcoin Is Worth So Much Right Now

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Digital Gold author Nathaniel Popper says major banks are looking into bitcoin explained audio possibilities of its decentralized network. There's so much I have to learn each day in preparation for interviews that bitcoin explained audio I don't absolutely have to know something, I sometimes give myself permission not to learn about it.

And that's been my attitude toward bitcoin until now. Or, to put it another way, when both Bjork and Microsoft are accepting bitcoin, it's time.

So bitcoin explained audio going to talk about what bitcoin is and how it's used in the underground and legit marketplaces, how it's become a vehicle for investors and how big banks are starting to copy it. A couple of years ago he wrote a book about bitcoin called "Digital Gold. So for those of us who have never used bitcoin and don't really understand how it works, you tell me, why should we care? Well, I think that there are a number of layers on which this bitcoin thing is bitcoin explained audio.

I mean, on the most sort of immediate level, people are using bitcoin in really interesting ways. I think people are using it as a sort of black market currency to buy drugs and make ransom payments, and it is allowing for essentially new types of crime.

But I think it also is pointing in the direction of where money might be going, and I think it tells us something about what money is. And then, you know, to zoom out even more broadly, I think it's really interesting because it's not just a new kind of software or a new kind of money.

It is essentially a social movement. You know, it has taken off because it has won-over thousands, tens of thousands, millions of people around the world. And I think it's really interesting to think about what it is about this thing that has been so interesting to people. So that's the sort of simple way of thinking about the size of the bitcoin economy. That is, just for comparison's sake, larger than the value of Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley, larger than the value of PayPal.

So that value is stored in something like 17 million bitcoin explained audio that are distributed around the world. Well, to start with, and I think the thing that probably most people are aware of, it's essentially a digital token that you can buy and sell.

But I think one of the reasons bitcoin has remained so confusing to people is that it's that digital token but then it's also the network on which it lives. And it's it's really the network that makes it so different. And so we refer to bitcoin, we refer to that network as essentially the bitcoin network. And it's something more like the internet. It's a decentralized network of computers around the world where all of these bitcoin live.

I mean, this idea when it first emerged in lateactually on Halloween ofwas the culmination of really decades of work among a sort of small group of computer scientists and activists who were worried about - their biggest concern bitcoin explained audio around privacy. They were really worried that, you know, in the existing system when money became digital.

So when we started to be able to move money around on computers with credit cards, every transaction that you made was tracked and could later be monitored by the government or by big companies. And so, you know, a big part of the work that went into this was to essentially create an anonymous digital cash. And so that was one strain of thinking that went into this.

But the other big strain when this came out was that bitcoin explained audio was essentially two months after Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. So right in the heart of the financial crisis. And there was a lot of distrust of both Wall Street and the big banks, but also of central banks.

And here this was introduced as a new form of money that could exist independent of all of these institutions that people were bitcoin explained audio skeptical of. So the people who created bitcoin, 'cause it grew out of a movement, wanted privacy.

But I'm not sure exactly where the line bitcoin explained audio between privacy and secrecy, but there's been a lot of secrecy surrounding the use of bitcoin because the bitcoin explained audio place it really took off was the underground market, like, on the dark web, the black markets on the dark web selling drugs and sex, right?

I mean, the line between privacy and secrecy is always very, very fuzzy, and I think that a lot of the technologies that are out there to provide privacy are also sort of abused on the other side from people wanting bitcoin explained audio do things that they don't want the government to be watching. And so yes, I mean, bitcoin sort of came out of bitcoin explained audio idealistic impulse. And, you know, after it was announced by the creator of bitcoin, this character known as Satoshi Nakamoto, it sort of stumbled along for two years, bitcoin explained audio, you know, you could send bitcoin around, but they really weren't worth anything at that point.

And it really kind of gained its first reason for being with the creation of the Silk Road, which was this, you know, online black market sort bitcoin explained audio eBay where you could buy drugs. And the Silk Road, the creator of the Silk Road realized that bitcoin made this possible for the first time. It was, frankly, quite hard to buy drugs online before this because if you did, the police would just go ask PayPal or Visa, you know, who had sent this money to buy this baggie of heroin or marijuana, and PayPal would give those records over and the person would get arrested.

With bitcoin, you could send that money and nobody bitcoin explained audio know where the money came from, and that sort of gave rise to this bitcoin explained audio new online market. And it's the bitcoin explained audio phenomenon with ransomware, when somebody's computer is basically being held hostage by malware, and the only way to get access to your computer back is to pay the designated amount of ransom money in bitcoin.

But, of course, experts warn that even if you pay it, you might not necessarily get access to your computer again. But - so that's something that's caught on. And I should say that applies not just to individual computers, but also to, like, whole bitcoin explained audio and to hospitals bitcoin explained audio, you know, around the globe. I mean, it's created enormous problems for companies, for governments. You've seen, yeah, hospitals that have had to just go back to analog recordkeeping for weeks.

I think it was the San Francisco Chronicle, or maybe it was a radio station here that basically had to stop using computers because their computers were all frozen by a ransomware attack. And ransomware was really something that existed before bitcoin. But, you know, in tech speak, it didn't scale without bitcoin. Before, somebody would have to go get a money order and send it around the world physically.

That's not an easy thing to do. And, you know, that is possible because of this new way that bitcoin works, which, you know, the first sort of real-world uses of that have not been altogether positive ones for the world, I think. In terms of the dark web and the illegal, you know, the markets for illegal goods on the dark web that you have to pay for with bitcoin, some of those sites have been shut down, including Silk Road, the one that you mentioned, and more legit uses of bitcoin are emerging now.

So what are some examples of that? Well, the idealism that fueled bitcoin at the beginning, the place where you've seen that playing out is in countries where people have their money trapped or are losing money because the local currency is, you bitcoin explained audio, is experiencing hyper inflation and so people bitcoin explained audio losing all of their savings and looking somewhere outside of the government's control to put money.

And so you've seen that in countries like Venezuela and Argentina. You even hear about it in Zimbabwe. You know, in those bitcoin explained audio, people have always clamored to exchange their local currency for dollars because dollars were so much more reliable, but there was, you know, a real shortage of dollars.

And when you got the dollars, you frequently had to sort of put them under your mattress, which wasn't terribly secure. You know, the vision with bitcoin bitcoin explained audio that in those sorts of places, you can now trade your local currency for bitcoin and have a somewhat more stable place to keep your money then, you know, the bolivar or the Bitcoin explained audio peso.

So that's sort of, I think, one place where people like to talk about - talk up, bitcoin aficionados like to talk bitcoin explained audio. I mean, it's bitcoin explained audio very easy to sort of move money around the globe so, you know, it takes a long time right now to make a sort of pretty basic bank transfer to India, to China.

You know, that can bitcoin explained audio weeks and, you know, require sort of fees at every step along the way. The idea with bitcoin is, you know, you can send it right now and it's there in essentially 10 minutes. And the person can log in and they don't have to get approval from anybody. You know, that's particularly attractive in countries where it's hard for people to get bank accounts and where, you know, places like India, again, or Africa, where people are sort of locked out of the online economy because they can't get a credit card, they can't get a debit card.

You know, they can't sign up for Netflix. Now you can sign up for Netflix very easily in India or Africa, even if you don't have a credit card, thanks to bitcoin. We need to take a short break here so let me reintroduce you.

If you're just joining bitcoin explained audio, my guest is Nathaniel Popper, and we're talking about bitcoin. He's been writing about digital currency for several years. He's a tech reporter at The New York Times, and a couple of years ago, he wrote a book about bitcoin called "Digital Gold. And my guest, Nathaniel Popper, has been writing about bitcoin for several years.

Except we don't know because He bitcoin explained audio really revealed who he was. Even you, bitcoin explained audio have been covering this for years, don't know who he is. I was going to say that. So people frequently say he, she, they or it in case it is a sort of autonomous, you know, being that created this of some sort. But, you know, what we do know is that the person who first introduced this back in and then released the first software a few months later went by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto and communicated essentially only by email, would get on sort of chats and sort of social media forums, but always under that Satoshi Nakamoto pseudonym.

And a few years into bitcoin's existence, right as it was beginning to take off, Satoshi essentially signed off and disappeared, you know, sent the last email, gave control of the system over to the people who had been drawn to it and were, you know, working on the software at that point. And since then there's been a sort of manhunt for, you know, to discover the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto.

And a bunch of names have been floated over time. I wrote a story when my book came out about the person who - one of the people who was widely viewed as the most likely candidate. But all of the people who have been, you know, fingered as potential Satoshi Nakamotos have denied essentially that they are, except for, I should say, one person who claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto and won over a certain number of people.

This got a lot of news, I think, maybe a year or two back, this guy named Craig Wright from Australia who claimed that he was Satoshi. But as people looked into it and looked into the sort of electronic records - it was quite a bitcoin explained audio - I think most people concluded that this was not in fact Satoshi Nakamoto.

So when Satoshi Nakamoto, whoever that is, started bitcoin, he or she issued something between, like, guidelines and a manifesto. Like, a nine-page document. Can you sum bitcoin explained audio, for those of us who don't really understand this laughterthe principles that were laid out in those nine pages? Yeah, so this was the original. It's called Satoshi's White Paper. You know, it has this sort of iconic status, this nine-page PDF that was released in early - in late And it sort of described how this system was going to work.

And it said it would be a sort of electronic cache, and there were going to be certain rules that would govern this electronic cache. There would only ever be 21 million bitcoins created. That rule was sort of stated there at the beginning. And that was created so that it would have a sort of scarcity like gold and - which might lead people to think there was going to be a value in it.

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Updated November 03, There have been many reported cases where people mined thousands of relatively worthless bitcoins as a hobby years ago, only to now realise they are rich. One IT worker even threw out a hard drive containing 7, bitcoins. If you want to know whether it's worth getting into and you can't tell a bitcoin from a blockchain, read our explainer to see how it all works. There are others out there as well, such as Ethereum, LiteCoin, Neo, Monero etc — these non-bitcoin cryptocurrencies are often referred to online as altcoins.

The main feature of cryptocurrencies is that they operate on a decentralised peer-to-peer network, with no central authority or government backing. You can pay bitcoin to someone else and there's no bank to go through to make that transaction, just a peer-to-peer networked program on your computer.

The thing about bitcoin that is exciting the financial world is the underlying technology that makes cryptocurrencies possible — the blockchain. The blockchain is essentially a public ledger of all the transactions ever made in the currency and keeps a record of which user owns what coins. When a transaction is made it is added to the end of the blockchain and confirmed using a series of complex computations by the computers of other users who are on that currency's network.

It solves a problem that until now has stopped digital currencies from working — the issue of double spending. Since a digital coin is essentially just a file, a bit of code, it could be copied numerous times and reused and sent to multiple people. The blockchain stops that from happening because when you send the coin to someone else the other computers on the network reach a consensus that that coin has changed to a new owner.

All this is done without a central authority or bank. Bitcoin and the blockchain technology was created by someone under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto and released as a working beta in Satoshi's true identity remains a mystery as he disappeared from the scene in after seemingly handing over the reins to Gavin Andresen, the chief scientist at the Bitcoin Foundation.

Over the years numerous people have claimed to be Satoshi, including Australian computer scientist Craig Wright. But so far, no definitive proof of Satoshi's identity has been given. You can buy bitcoins with fiat currencies like Australian dollars from online exchanges or you can create brand new bitcoins in a process known as mining. Remember how transactions on the blockchain need to be confirmed by the computers of other users?

The most recent transactions made on the network are bundled up into a transaction 'block', which is finalised roughly every 10 minutes. Once a computer solves the block's complex equations and finds a valid hash key it is added to the blockchain, verifying bitcoin transactions between users, while at the same time rewarding the miner with new bitcoins.

It can take a while for miners to reap rewards as only the first user to solve the block by finding one of a number of valid hash keys is rewarded with bitcoins. During the early days of bitcoin in a common household computer would have been powerful enough to mine for dozens of new coins using its CPU or GPU.

The currency automatically regulates the difficulty of the mathematical problem adding complexity to the hash value computers need to find as well as the number of bitcoins received as a reward. If a lot of people are connected to the network to mine for bitcoins the difficulty of solving a block increases — this is known as the hash rate.

The number of bitcoins rewarded also adjusts with an end result that means every four years only half the amount of coins created in the previous four years can be made. Recently, the invention of specialised computers used solely for mining has dramatically increased the difficulty of obtaining a bitcoin. Bitcoins can be mined solo or as part of a pool, but even then the bitcoin or fraction of the coin you receive will likely not be enough to cover the electricity cost.

Bitcoin mining was extremely easy when the network first began, but it is now out of the realm of common home computers. Due to the way Bitcoin was coded, there is a limit of just under 21 million bitcoins that can be created. Once the limit is reached, no more bitcoins can be made. However, a single bitcoin can be subdivided as far down as the eighth decimal place 0.

You can store and send bitcoins from an encrypted digital wallet, which is run as a program on your computer. The wallet works with two keys — a private key and a public key — which look like a seemingly random string of numbers and letters. The private key is kept secret by you and acts as a password that unlocks the wallet and lets you send any bitcoins associated with it.

If anyone else got access to that key they could steal your funds. The public key is like your bank account number, and you give it to other people so they know what address to send their bitcoins to.

If you want to start out with bitcoin, there are a number of websites or programs you can freely use to generate a private and public key for a new wallet. These websites let you sign up and login to buy bitcoin and other altcoins and even let you keep the coins stored on their website so you don't have to worry about digital wallets or public and private keys.

This is not a good idea. If the website gets hacked or someone gets your login details they could access and drain your funds from the exchange. There is no way for a transaction to be reversed or recovered if a thief sends your bitcoins to their wallet.

After buying your coins you should transfer them to a secure digital wallet created by you and not hosted online. You can even write down the wallet's private key on a piece of paper this is known as a paper wallet and stick it in a safe. If you don't store the private key on your computer or online then hackers can never break in and access your funds.

Your bitcoins would then essentially be offline. First posted December 02, If you have inside knowledge of a topic in the news, contact the ABC. ABC teams share the story behind the story and insights into the making of digital, TV and radio content. Read about our editorial guiding principles and the enforceable standard our journalists follow.

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Animal hospitals and carers are seeing more emaciated koalas, possums with dog bites and wallabies hit by cars than ever before. By Jordan Hayne and Isaac Nowroozi. Blockbuster action, high-intensity thrills, and dashing romance may not be the first things that spring to mind when Canberra is mentioned — but still Peter Bakos wanted to know whether any Hollywood movies had been filmed here.

Bitcoin explained in 3 minutes. Bitcoin is a digital currency that operates via a peer-to-peer network rather than with a centralised authority. Key points Bitcoin is a digital currency known as a cryptocurrency The peer-to-peer technology underpinning it is known as the blockchain — a public ledger of all transactions Bitcoins can be stored in a digital wallet and used to buy other currencies or real world goods. The currency is being accepted in shops and online. Bitcoins - Free money?

Some shops sell physical 'bitcoins' that come with a bitcoin code that can be redeemed online. Specialised bitcoin mining hardware has made generating coins on average home computers unprofitable.

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