Sorry to be a wet blanket. Writing a description for bitcoin for
general audiences is bloody hard. There’s nothing to relate it to.
– Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of bitcoin, July 5, 2010
Today, four years later, bitcoin has hundreds of thousands of
users, but it is still very hard to explain what bitcoin really is.
Thankfully there are good online resources such as Bitcointalk
and Reddit where you can freely discuss anything related to the
digital currency. When someone asked how to describe bitcoin,
the answer with the highest ranking was as follows:
Bitcoin is a new kind of money. It's the first decentralized
electronic currency not controlled by a single organization or
government. It's an open source project, and it is used by more
than 100,000 people. All over the world people are trading
hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin every day with
no middle man and no credit card companies. It's a startup
currency which has never happened before.
Bitcoin is the first digital currency that is completely distributed.
The network is made up of users like yourself so no bank or
payment processor is required between you and whoever you're
trading with. This decentralization is the basis for Bitcoin's
security and freedom.