I know Bitcoin is hard to explain; even to adults. I have developed a short text that could be useful to explain Bitcoin to children of teenage age. Here it is:
Have you ever wondered about a world where you could bank without banks? A world where your private transactions are public? A world where you could send transactions internationally in a peer-to-peer situation without going through a third party like a bank? It sounds crazy but that is what Satoshi Nakamoto created in the January of 2009. He created Bitcoin.
Bitcoins are the first decentralised digital coins that can be sent via the internet. This means that it has “no central control, no central private vault of information, no central management, and most importantly, no central point of failure”. Bitcoin is controlled by the people who use it. Everything in bitcoin is public. This is contrasted with the centralised system of third party verifications such as banks or clearing houses. Bitcoin is shaking the foundations of the society in which most people live in today. It is a new, technology that can change the world.
Compared to other alternatives such as fiat, which is the currency that has been approved by a government tender, bitcoin has advantages on many levels. These advantages all rely on Bitcoin’s central philosophy of decentralisation. Bitcoin proposes a form of peer to peer transactions, which means that we are ditching banks for good. In the centralised world, banks have control over transactions. They charge payment for verifying the validity of such transactions. As there are no banks in the case of Bitcoin, it means that business fees are much lower, we can use Bitcoin internationally and that your wallet can never be frozen.
Let’s look into how these Bitcoins work. There are many currency exchanges in which people can sell or buy Bitcoin for dollars, euros, pounds and more. Obviously, as each currency has different values, the price of Bitcoin is dependant on the currency used. All your Bitcoin are stored in your wallet on your phones, computers, the internet or other devices. Sending transactions to other accounts is as easy as handing money over the counter and anything in the world can be bought with Bitcoin. These networks of Bitcoin transactions are secured by people called miners who are rewarded with newly created Bitcoin in relation to the number of transactions verified. Now you may think that this is the same as banks, but the fact is that banks charge you for approving transactions, whereas miners are rewarded for transactions. In a sense, Bitcoin depends on transactions. Once these transactions are verified they are placed in a publicly stored Ledger called the Blockchain. Here, all the verified transactions can be viewed.
Bitcoins complex technology is revolutionising our current society. It will minimise fees charged by businesses, it is free to create a wallet and start using them and there are no chargebacks. All in all, Bitcoin provides advantages for everyone. To get more information visit bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=1.0 . Banking is necessary, but Banks are not.