Bitcoin works on something called "blockchain". This software system is often described as an immutable digital Ledger. It is on thousands of computers around the world and is supported by both ordinary users and more experienced experts known as "miners". Jared Blir from Yahoo Finance fun mining bitcoins, running a program for mining cryptocurrency in the background on his laptop. And here's how many bitcoins he managed to generate today: 0.000000071589. At its current rate, it would take 1200 years to mine one whole bitcoin. This will give you an understanding of the complexity of bitcoin mining and how much computing power the process requires: these computerized "rigs" emit as much power that can heat your home.
All transactions using bitcoins are constantly registered by miners who upload transaction packets, or "blocks", into a chain supported on all computers. Blockchain as a technology has become popular among banks and other large financial institutions that want to use it to process payments in their own backend systems. But they are mainly interested in blockchain (without bitcoin).
Topic: What does bitcoin rely on? (Read 161 times)
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