Like most Internet users, already made purchases and payments by Internet.eu not buy often, but the number of times resorted to this expedient is significant. The medium I use to make PayPal payment. Or, when the seller is trustworthy, paid directly by credit card. As until now never had any problems, I keep acting like this and do not give much attention to alternative forms of payment.

For some time now I have heard of "Bitcoin". As "coin" in English means currency and the term "bit" is commonly used to indicate something related to computers, I figured that it was a new form of virtual payment in which not enter money or something. And as it not I was interested, just let him aside.

The point is that, although the size of my ignorance is infinite (the more I learn the more I realize its enormity), I do not like to ignore whatever it is. So I took an article on Bitcoin fell in my hands and I decided to take a look. And you have no idea how I was surprised by what I discovered.

Now, considering that, as I presume, ever be spoken more in Bitcoin, I decided to share with you this newly acquired knowledge. So get to work. Starting at the beginning, as is fitting.

What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is not one of the available forms of virtual payment. Even is a "payment". Bitcoin is a currency.

A virtual currency, of course, but a currency - and in this context the term "currency" is not used in the same sense of "circular piece of metal ... etc." But, it is used when it is said that the real, the US dollar, the yuan, weight, are coins. Simply put: Bitcoin is what we usually call "money", "bufunfa", "caraminguá" or any of a hundred names listed in Houaiss.

So Bitcoin is money - at least for those who transact with it - and is becoming increasingly popular. So you can, for example, to convert Bitcoins amounts expressed in US dollars since known its share price. To illustrate: Friday, January 1, 2014, the price of bitcoin (whose symbol is BTC) BTC opened 1 = US $ 757.58 and fluctuated between a minimum of 1 BTC = US $ 750.53 and a maximum of 1 BTC = US $ 774.26.

Who determines this variation?

No one. The fluctuation of Bitcoin quotation strictly obeys the law of supply and demand. Some institutions (the "Bitcoin Exchanges" that, in a sense, act as virtual banks, we shall speak of them later) calculate this quotation and disclose over time. Want to know the exact figure now, that is, the moment you are reading these ordinary lines? For stop reading and visit the site of one of these institutions, for example CoinDesk, and see for yourself (the good technique and good sense not recommend that an author suggests to the reader stop reading your text, but in this case I'm sure you will return).

But after all, what is a coin? What is money?

Money is something that can be exchanged for goods, services, foreign exchange (which in turn are also for "money"), used as payment in the various financial transactions and is widely accepted, at least by those who use it.

For example, in ancient Rome legionaries were paid with certain amounts of salt - hence the origin of the term "wages" - and this salt was exchanged for goods and services. Ie salt was money. To me it does not seem that the salt is the ideal currency. I, at least, hardly accept as currency anything that was soluble in water. But at the time when the Roman army conquered Europe salt was rare, difficult to obtain and extremely useful, hence its great value. Also, meet other conditions that a good currency must meet: it was easily recognizable, hard to fake, transferable between people, portable, divisible and fungible. I'll spare you the query to the dictionary because I myself ended up being forced to do so and not worth duplicating efforts. The Houaiss: Fungible (adj) - likely to be replaced by something else of the same kind, quality, quantity and value.

And the bitcoin also meets all of them.

But not only this. Accumulate coins is a means of storing wealth (see the famous safe McDuck), since they can be exchanged at any time for almost any thing or service (stated Mr. Olacyr de Moraes, gentleman of a certain age, wide possessions and good taste that is often seen surrounded by gorgeous young people with him show great intimacy, when asked by one of the journalists "provocative" if he thought those beautiful girls liked really him, replied: "I do not know, I never asked," and added "When I go to a good restaurant and as a steak I like, do not ask if the cow like me" not guarantee this to be true, Mr. Olacyr demonstrates an elegance that would prevent him from resorting to this as raw image, but whether or not it illustrates what I mean by the "just about anything or service" from above).

To be used in order to accumulate wealth, the currency must meet many other conditions: it must have a stable supply, be durable, easy to be protected from foreign friends and maintain a stable value.

Also these conditions are fulfilled by Bitcoin, except perhaps the last; but, after all, the prices of other currencies "official" may also fluctuate (return to this point) and not really treasure them ceases to be a means of storing wealth.

Finally, there are still some features presented by the so-called "cash": it belongs to whom the door (it's in your pocket So is yours?), Does not keep any record of the identity of the owner, it is easy to store anonymously, but difficult or impossible to replace in case of loss or theft. They all also made by Bitcoin.

So far all the conditions presented as necessary for something to be used as currency were met not only by Bitcoin as for all other official currencies of different countries.

Thus, answering the question from above: Bitcoin is a currency, since it meets all the conditions that must be met by other official currencies.

Despite all this, Bitcoin has some additional features that give you some significant advantages over other currencies. All stemming from the fact that Bitcoin one cryptocurrency (Portuguese version of the English "criptocurrency").

First let's see what comes to be a cryptocurrency, then what are the consequences of its use.

A cryptocurrency is an instrument of exchange, bearer (which does not identify the owner) created based on digital encryption.

And how to understand the concepts of encryption and digital encryption is essential to understand how all Bitcoin system works, let's leave that to the next column.

see you, bye.