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Cambiar a españolWhat is Bitcoin? Explained in 3 minutes.
Watch the short video, then try the 5 ideas below. No strange words.
Reading the Bitcoin Diploma? This page goes with Module 7, "How Bitcoin works".
Why was Bitcoin created?
Prices keep going up
The same $100 that bought 200 pupusas now buys 100. When more money is created, each dollar buys less. That is inflation.
Money has a middleman
When Sofía sends money to Carlos, a bank sits in the middle. It charges, it makes them wait, and it can say no.
Many people have no bank at all
In El Salvador, about 6 in 10 people have no bank account. They hide cash under the mattress, where it can be lost or stolen.
Bitcoin is an answer to all three
In 2009, someone called Satoshi Nakamoto launched Bitcoin: digital money that no bank or government controls. Nobody knows who Satoshi really is.
- Only 21 million, no one can print more
- Person to person, no bank in the middle
- Only a phone and internet needed
How Bitcoin works in 5 ideas
Bitcoin is money, but digital, created to solve these problems. Five ideas make it special.
A notebook everyone shares
Money in a bank lives on the bank's computer. Bitcoin lives on thousands of computers at the same time, and all of them keep the same copy of the notebook.
Nobody can change their copy in secret: the others would not agree.
Why it matters No single bank or person controls the money.
0.001 ₿ →
The pages are called blocks
About every 10 minutes, a new page with the latest payments is written. Each page carries the fingerprint of the one before. If someone changes an old page, its fingerprint changes and the chain breaks.
Why it matters Nobody can rewrite the history of payments.
Here a block appears every 3 seconds. In real Bitcoin, every 10 minutes.
Mining is a guessing race
To write the next block, computers try number after number until one gives a fingerprint that starts with zeros. Hard to find, easy to check. That is called proof of work.
The winner adds the block and earns new bitcoin. Try it: your phone will look for a fingerprint that starts with 000.
Why it matters Cheating costs more than it pays, so the system stays honest.
Why it matters Your money is yours, with no one in the middle.
fingerprint: ...
The real Bitcoin fingerprint (SHA-256), calculated on your device.
Only 21 million. Ever.
No one can print more bitcoin. The reward for mining is cut in half about every four years. The last bitcoin will be mined around 2140. That is why people call Bitcoin scarce, like gold.
Why it matters No one can print more and shrink what you save.
New bitcoin per block. * Next cut, around 2028.
Your bitcoin opens with keys
Your address is like an account number: you can share it to receive. Your private key, saved as 12 or 24 words, is what lets you spend. Whoever has the words has the bitcoin.
It is a scam, always. No bank, teacher or support team will ever ask for your words.
That was 5 ideas. The Bitcoin Diploma has 418 pages.
The official course of El Salvador's National Bitcoin Office, designed by WeSpark. It starts with your life, not with Bitcoin, and ends with a written life plan.
Now you know how Bitcoin works
This is education, not advice to buy. Understand first, then decide.
Designed by WeSpark for El Salvador's Bitcoin Diploma 2.0.