While gray-suited central bankers print conventional currencies and commercial banks control transactions in them, no one person or entity is in charge of bitcoin. Instead it runs on a decentralized system of shared trust without any third-party verification of transactions – one reason why many people are attracted to it.
Critics, however, say it needs a “benevolent dictator” or at least some “adults” to manage the expansion that it needs to cope with the increasing number of transactions. Someone, or some group, must decide how to meet users’ requirements, they say.
Trades are handled by thousands of “mining” computers around the world which validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes.
