What is crypto?

If you have heard about Bitcoin or blockchain and wondered what it is all about, here is my attempt at explaining the basics.

Bitcoin is the largest market cap coin with over $650B in value and over $33,000 for each Bitcoin. Does this mean you need $33,000 to buy some, no, unlike US dollars that are only broken down to 2 decimal places and 1 cent, BTC is broken down to .00000001 or 1 millionth of a Bitcoin also called a Satoshi. So you can buy as little as you want.

BTC may be the largest but there are many different crypto coins, currently 78 different ones with over $1B market cap and hundreds if not thousands of others.

Each coin is on a blockchain. The blockchain is a ledger of all the accounts and transactions that happen. Blockchain is a versatile technology with many uses with many different projects under development.

A key feature of these coins is the decentralized nature of the design. Unlike your bank account that the bank holds for you and gives you access to, these blockchain coin accounts exist for anyone to view and see how much the wallet holds and the transactions are done. But to send money out of a wallet only the wallet owner has the special digital keyphrase that allows access to the account.

So what is so special about Bitcoin and why is it worth so much, well nothing really, it is just what the current demand is for purchasing more that sets the price. Same as gold or silver or dirt or wood, it's value is just in what is willing to be paid for it.