The Bitcoin system keeps a digital book just like a computer file that shows who owns Bitcoin money and all the times they use it.
Image taken from freepik
What does this digital book look like?
The times when people trade Bitcoin are grouped together like puzzle pieces into blocks. Each block has a special code like a fingerprint that links them, which is why it's called a blockchain. This special code connects all the trades made in Bitcoin since the first day it started, January 3, 2009.
Because it takes about 10 minutes to make sure a trade is real, only 7 trades can happen every second with Bitcoin. This slow speed is a problem for some people, but it's not a surprise for those who know about the blockchain trilemma. Bitcoin wanted to be very safe and not controlled by one group, so it had to give up being super fast.
This digital book is kept on many computers all around the world, called nodes which use Bitcoin software. Each of these computers has the same copy of the digital book. This way, no one person has all the power, which helps keep bad people from attacking the system.
But in traditional computer systems, one main computer (server) stores all the information and controls who can see it. These computers are easy for bad people to attack.
Can the digital book of Bitcoin be broken?
To break Bitcoin, you would have to attack all the computers that have the complete digital book that are called full nodes. This is almost impossible because there are over 12,600 computers spread all around the world, and even some in space!
There are also special computers called miners that check if Bitcoin trades are real and make sure the digital book is safe. In normal banks, when you send money from one account to another, the bank makes sure it happens. But with Bitcoin, the special miners do this job instead of the bank.
A new way of trusting
In the Bitcoin system, the special miners replace the banks and make sure everything is right. But one miner alone can't be trusted.
We only trust the whole network of miners together. This way of trusting is really new and different, and Bitcoin made it happen on computers.
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