Easy way to explain bitcoinBitcoin is like digital cash, or like digital gold.
You need an internet connection to use it.
The bitcoin network only records transactions that take place.
Bitcoin enters circulation given as rewards to people that confirm transactions and secure the network. These people are called miners of bitcoin.
Looking at all transactions that took place the software can say how much bitcoin balance your bitcoin address is associated with.
Bitcoins have no physical existence other than the record of transactions that exists in the cloud, replicated to all computers using the software. They only exist as those balances the software knows you have associated with your bitcoin address, in your digital wallet.
Your BitCoin wallet is a file, called "wallet.dat";
It is located at: C:\Users\YourUserName\Appdata\Roaming\BitCoin (Vista and 7)
It is in that file that you store your password keys. They are called the private keys. It is that what you keep and need to always have in a safe place.
You can print your private key.
The private key is mathematically related to the Bitcoin address, and is designed so that the Bitcoin address can be calculated from the private key, but importantly, the same cannot be done in reverse.
You can use bitaddress.org to create (find out) the bitcoin address of a random private key and print out that key pair, so that you can always send bitcoin money to the public key bitcoin address and keep the private key safe.
Every 10 minutes or so, a new block of transactions is added to the record of
all transactions (called the blockchain).
That gives a reward to the lucky miner that was able to find the computational solution for a valid block to be processed.
The reward started to be 50 BTC every ten minutes. But every four years the reward halves.
Right now it is 25 BTC every 10 minutes and from 2016 till 2020 it will 12.5 BTC every 10 minutes, and so on till we have 20 million BTC in 2027, when Bitcoin becomes adult (95% of the theoretical limit of 21 million BTC).
Instead of kilograms of bitcoin, BTC is used.
One BTC can be divided in up to eight decimal places making the total number of units that will ever be in circulation:
21 million * 100,000,000 = 2.1 quadrilion (satoshis)
Bitcoin is a new kind of money that makes it possible for a complete separation of money and State. It is the end of inflationary policies and also the end of the fractional banking system.
"The problem with fractional banking system is that it allows for a positive feedback mechanism with asset prices. People often borrow (create) money to purchase non-productive assets in the hope that they can sell that asset at a higher price at a later time. But of course the more money is created to purchase an asset, the higher the price of that asset will rise.
This self fulfilling prophesy encourages more people to do the same, and a bubble ensues. Asset price bubbles are an inevitable consequence of our monetary system."
(
http://www.fullreservebanking.com/fractionalreservebanking.htm)
Bitcoin has lots of advantages and is just a matter of time for it to completely change the paradigm of money in everyone's life.