Executive Summary When Satoshi Nakamoto published his seminal paper called Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System in October 2008, he started what is arguably the first viable cryptocurrency. Bitcoins have steadily increased in value from its inception to today where one bitcoin is worth some $6,500 and its success has encouraged the development of some thousand other cryptocurrencies. But it begs the question, how does an electronic string of digits contain any value at all and why do the 22 million Bitcoin practitioners in the world today think this is so special? To answer the value question, you have to remember why any currency system has value. The U.S. dollar has value because we all agree that it does. Bitcoins have value because 22 million Bitcoin practitioners have faith that it does too. Bitcoins are also scarce meaning that there is a finite number in the world. This has a contributing affect to why bitcoins have increased in value. To answer why Bitcoin is sp...
Piercing the fog of the opaque world for my own edification