How is bitcoin "printed?"
It isn't.
No one prints bitcoin in the same way that regular national currency is printed.
Whereas a bank can simply produce more money to cover the national debt, thus
devaluing their currency and causing inflation..
Instead, bitcoin is created digitally, by a community of people that anyone can join. Bitcoins
are "mined" using computing power in a distributed network. This "mining" is the method of
processing and securing each transaction - locking them into the "blockchain" ledger.
Miners
earn
bitcoin
as
rewards
for
using
their
computing
power
when
they
verify
transactions and solve the complex mathematical formulas associated - this now requires
quite significant (and growing!) computing power.
There's a limit to how many bitcoin will be created
The Bitcoin protocol - the code and mathematical rules that bitcoin is based on state that
there will only ever be 21 million bitcoins created by miners.
This finite number means that bitcoin is deflationary rather than inflationary like all other
national currencies; i.e. because the bank is constantly printing more money to cover debt
and to fill new loans, the value of the currency as a whole falls - thus we have inflation.
However with bitcoin, only 21 million can ever be created, so the currency is deflationary -
as it becomes used more and more in demand, the price will rise as there is a fixed,
definite, limited supply.
Now 21 million might not sound like enough if it is really to be adopted and used as a
worldwide currency and accepted in all online shopping.
But it is :)