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Learn More About Bitcoin

We want to give each person the ability to understand Bitcoin’s impact on human rights, technology, the energy landscape, and global finance.

The simplest way to understand Bitcoin…

Bitcoin is a digital currency used on a peer-to-peer network that does not require any intermediaries. This helps enable more secure and transparent transactions.

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But How Does It Work?

At its most basic level, it is a software program that keeps an immutable record of financial transactions using a technology called blockchain.

  • Instead of relying on humans, blockchain leverages machines and mathematics to confirm the validity of transactions in a financial network.
  • Bitcoin thereby upends traditional finance by allowing two parties to transact with one another without the intervention of a middleman.
  • In short, Bitcoin replaces banks with blockchain, empowering individuals to be their own bank.

What Is Proof of Work?

To achieve this, Bitcoin uses a system called Proof of Work.

  • Proof of Work requires computers participating in the Bitcoin network—known as miners—to solve complex mathematical problems to validate transactions on the blockchain.
  • Once a miner solves a complex math problem, the solution is confirmed by other miners in the network.
  • The network then “pays” the successful miner for its hard work by rewarding it with new Bitcoin.

This process is known as Bitcoin mining. It keeps the Bitcoin network decentralized and it keeps the network secure by making it prodigiously expensive—both in terms of energy and computing costs—to falsify or tamper with transactions on the blockchain.

The logic behind Proof of Work is like Captcha images when using web services—the hosting site wants to make sure the person using its service is legitimate and not a bot looking to spam the network. So, it requires “work” on the part of the user (i.e., checking a box or clicking select images) to confirm his or her legitimacy.
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What Makes Bitcoin
So Important?

Bitcoin empowers the public to earn, save, and spend their money freely in a peer-to-peer process, without relying on trusted third-party intermediaries.

Creating a Bitcoin address (a “wallet”) is just cryptographic math, and it’s free and instant. Though it is still unfamiliar to most people, anyone can learn to use Bitcoin today. The option to use Bitcoin is available to everyone equally, the powerful and the marginalized, the banked and the unbanked. As a public network, Bitcoin is a beacon of global empowerment and financial inclusion.

Small and large balances of BTC are treated equally by the Bitcoin network. Wealth does not influence the Bitcoin protocol’s operations. Data from the Bitcoin blockchain indicates that the majority of BTC are held as long-term savings, not as a short-term speculation.

Maintaining a network of those who advocate for Bitcoin is vitally important. In this way, we can promote financial inclusion and American innovation.

Why Should I Stand With Bitcoin?

By standing with Bitcoin, you are standing up for American liberties and more secure financial services. This is a new evolution in finance that will create American jobs and boost our country’s economy.

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