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What is Bitcoin? Bitcoin is a consensus network that enables a new payment system and a completely digital money. It is the first decentralized peer-to-peer payment network that is powered by its users with no central authority or middlemen. Bitcoin is pretty much like cash for the Internet. Bitcoin can be used to buy things electronically. And in this sense, it’s like conventional dollars, euros, or yen, which are also traded digitally. However, bitcoin’s most important characteristic, and the thing that makes it different to conventional money, is that it is decentralized. No single institution controls the bitcoin network. Bitcoins are created as a reward for processing work in which users offer their computing power to verify and record payments into the public ledger, known as the blockchain. This activity is called mining, which individuals or companies engage in, in exchange for transaction fees and newly created bitcoins. Besides mining, bitcoins can be obtained in exchange for fiat money, products, and services. Users can send and receive bitcoin electronically for an optional transaction fee using wallet software on a personal computer, mobile device, a web application, or a specialized device called a hardware wallet.