First of all, BITCOIN IS NOT MADE TO REPLACE MONEY.
It has a set number of created or 'minted' coin, 21million. That immediately tells you that there will never be enough Bitcoin to ever be used as a transaction coin.
Not only is it they're not enough to use it as a transaction coin, but it wasn't designed as a transaction coin, therefore it has extremely high rates to send the coin.
Ergo, an ASSET coin.
There are cryptocurrencies however that are specifically designed to be transaction coins. No one cryptocurrency though could ever hope to replace fiat cash, because the value of having physical over digital is never going to be outweighed. The only value in a cryptocurrency they're truly is the value the users give it, in the value in which the encryption and the limited supply of the coin provide.
If you think of them more as specialized game currencies, and they are only used within a platform, but it can be used like real money.
Now we do know criminals are using this TRANSPARENT LEDGER, AND NO AMOUNT OF FUNDS SHUFFLING CAN HIDE THAT YOU ARE MOVING MONEY. THEY WILL BE CAUGHT INEVITABLY, THERE IS NO WAY ATOUND THAT. Cryptos that are made to hide the ledger, I know less about, but since all transactions have to exist in some sort of network where everything is being recorded, no bit of information is ever technically inaccessible.
Banks made Ripple. Bitcoins' creator is anon, and has never surfaced. Anyone could try to take that claim to fame, but there is evidence and records in forums about the creator, and conversations with the creator about its purpose which is to show that money could be decentralized.
Right now, miners all over the world have been COMPETING with CHINA to make sure they never gain 51% of the network! THEY COULD THEN CHANGE BITCOIN HOW EVER WAY THEY WANT!
Bitcoin is an open source project that can only have changes made when people agree on them! If you want to voice a change, you presented to the community, and it's up to the community to transfer over to that, if you fail to have 51% of the community follow after, that means you create a fork of the coin instead and it's value could be nothing.
I will do the best to answer questions, but I spent my time search Bitcon and cryptos in 2017, so I could be a smidge out of date with other replies, but what I say in this particular post is the core of most crypto and Bitcoin discussion in the crypto communities.
How do they." Mine " the bitcoin? That's what I don't get Silver and gold are mined metals. I get that I get how it works. But Bitcoin not sure where the " mines " are
Mining does not pertain to Bitcoin only, its for blockchain technology. Its what keeps the system honest (verification process that makes fraud very difficult). If you're curious about blockchain stuff, there's a couple decent Yoo tube videos (blockchain for dummies or something like that).
I'll check it out
Only thing that has caught my attention about Bitcoin is that is decentalized. .
There's a lot of chatter about Bitcoin specifically these days, so you gotta do your own research and trust your gut. That being said, there's hundreds and hundreds of other coins. Each one based on something different with different energy mining needs and whatnot. Its still very new, and I'm still learning (i'm certainly no expert). To say that these coins don't have value because you can't hold them and cause you don't understand them is simply ignorant.
Agreed
So mining is actually the act of running your computer to run the encryptions for a cryptocurrency. You become the transaction hub to confirm an occurring transaction. A crypto will have a certain rate in which the coin is produced, for example a coin can choose to be minted once every hour, they might have five coins minted during that hour, but in addition to the five coins being minted, the miners also are distributed all transaction fees for helping support the network through running the encryption software on their computer.