<p>Maybe read a basic article like the one on ZDNet, <em><a href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/bitcoin-a-guide-to-the-future-of-currency/50601" rel="nofollow">Bitcoin: A guide to the future of currency</a></em>, to get a basic overview. They have a video on that page, too. This site is more focused on specific questions.</p>

<p>1) Bitcoins are units of currency that use encryption algorithms to ensure their authenticity.</p>

<p>2) It's kind of like bartering... The same way a dollar is.</p>

<p>3,4,5) You can purchase bitcoins from an exchange, or you can get someone to pay you in bitcoins (by selling a product or service). You can also "mine" bitcoins... which is a whole other question.</p>

<p>6) Bitcoins are anonymous in that there is no central tracking.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-03-09T21:51:14.847Z
2014-06-30T17:50:55.237Z
2014-06-30T17:50:55.237Z
David J
<p>The best is to come to <a href="https://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=bitcoin&amp;uio=d4" rel="nofollow">IRC chat</a> where lots of people are ready to answer all your questions.</p>

<p>The most active Bitcoin chat room is #bitcoin on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freenode" rel="nofollow">freenode</a> network. Follow the link or use the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIRC" rel="nofollow">mIRC</a> software.</p>

<p>Please also read the article <em><a href="http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/features/internet/3434167/what-is-bitcoin-future-digital-currency-explained/" rel="nofollow">What is Bitcoin? The future digital currency explained</a></em> and the follow-up comments.</p>

<p>~~~
Just search for: "Bitcoin explained with slices of pizza"
for this article,</p>

<p>Bitcoin is like an open book to all in digital format, with the registration of all balances of each bitcoin address, actually, with the record of all transactions between bitcoin addresses in chronological order.</p>

<p>All that help keep this book's transactions and balances, and they are called "miners" - in analogy to the exploration of gold - and actually nothing is created, crafted or minted, but you may happen to get a few slices of a huge "digital pizza" with a limit of twenty-one million slices, as a reward for verifying transactions and keep the book open to all and reliable on a distributed computer network - that is, without a central point of failure.
These rewards - or pizza slices - are called Bitcoin coins but note that they actually exist only as balances associated with a Bitcoin address and corresponding private key.</p>

<p>What is kept private is these private keys of each Bitcoin address and this information is stored in a special file called a wallet (wallet.dat) that protects this information, making it invisible and hermetic as much as possible.</p>

<p>The work of the mining computers is to make transactions become irreversible, using trial and error until they find a place in the chain of blocks which make them irreversible. The difficulty level of this trial and error to find a place in the so-called blockchain is the scheme that makes transactions irreversible and avoids double-spending from bitcoins from these addresses in the chain of transactions, and it is adjusted every two weeks, so that a new block is inserted every ten minutes - no matter the amount of computational power of the network -, with corresponding reward of pizza slices, not coins, to "miners" that actually created the last block to be added - usually collaborating in pools with other miners in order to have more chances of not missing the reward. </p>

<p>They receive the pizza slices, not coins to the Bitcoin address they designate for that purpose.</p>

<p>This reward is called coinbase and is what makes the value of bitcoin coins for circulation. Yes, they are coins, not slices of pizza. But if you want to think about it with slices of pizza, you can happily say that actually there are no coins: simply the "miners" receive slices of pizza in their designated Bitcoin addresses, thus allowing transactions between bitcoin addresses.</p>

<p>The numbers used by the mysterious Big Daddy of bitcoin, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto" rel="nofollow">Satoshi Nakamoto</a>, are somewhat arbitrary and empiric, but they work well and seem to have been inspired by gold mining anologies, as well as to provide a reasonable monetary mass, that could become comparable to the U.S. dollar by 2030.</p>

<p>The private key and Bitcoin address form a pair and are like a key and a locker, or as a password and your bank account. But their mathematical properties are very particular, because it is possible to calculate in some fractions of a second bitcoin address, in a pair, from its private key. But the reverse would take countless millions, if not billions of years as it would have to be done by trial and error, even if quantum computers were used.</p>

<p>It is possible to think that with a lot of luck you could find a private key and generate a pair so that the corresponding Bitcoin address had balance worth stealing, but the probability of this happening is certainly much less than three lightnings falling upon the same person and him remaining alive, though that may have already happened in the past.</p>

<p>To decrease the risk you must have many Bitcoin addresses in your wallet. Having the bitcoins well distributed in our(s) wallet(s) ensures it will be much less likely there will be a chance of seeing all your bitcoins disappear magically. 
If you encrypt your wallet and have the bitcoins distributed in many addresses, you must be safe.</p>

<p>The limit of 21 million bitcoins results from the accumulation of 50 bitcoins reward each ten minutes during the first four years (50 x 6 x 24 x 365 x 4 = 10,512,000), plus, half, 25 bitcoins reward each ten minutes during the following four years (5,256,000 + 10,512,000= 15,768,000), plus, half, 12.5 bitcoins reward each ten minutes during the following four years (2,628,000 + 5,256,000 + 10,512,000 = 18,396,000)... and so on and so forth, till the reward of the fours years before is so that it doesn't add nothing to the total of "almost" 21 million, more precisely: 20999999.97690000 BTC.</p>

<p>Here is the code that imposes this limitation,</p>

<pre><code>//In main.cpp

int64 static GetBlockValue(int nHeight, int64 nFees)
{
    int64 nSubsidy = 50 * COIN;

    // Subsidy is cut in half every 210000 blocks, which will occur approximately every four years.
    nSubsidy &gt;&gt;= (nHeight / 210000);

    return nSubsidy + nFees;
}
</code></pre>

<p>Here are some links that may be helpful:</p>

<ul>
<li><p><em><a href="http://coinlab.com/pdfs/a-bitcoin-primer.pdf" rel="nofollow">A Bitcoin Primer</a></em> by Chris Koss and Mike Koss</p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="http://blog.oleganza.com/post/32725987418/bitcoin-non-technical-faq" rel="nofollow">Bitcoin Non-Technical FAQ</a></em> by Oleg Andreev</p></li>
</ul>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-03-10T08:40:04.343Z
My goodness, that's the longest single block of text I've seen on this site! Some paragraphs would certainly help your answer be easier on the eyes... and perhaps would also help make it "suitable for dummies" as this question requests
Highly Irregular
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-03-10T08:42:01.907Z
I should also add that code is very definitely inappropriate on an answer "for dummies"!
Highly Irregular
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-03-09T22:04:17.627Z
2014-06-22T15:01:33.487Z
2014-06-22T15:01:33.487Z
Algol Cobol
<p>Bitcoin for dummies:</p>

<ol>
<li>Is this like time banking/ time exchanges?</li>
<li>Is this like barter?</li>
<li>How do I get-earn-buy-create a bitcoin from nothing?</li>
<li>Do I have to buy a bitcoin?</li>
<li>If so, with what do I buy one?</li>
<li>If this is anonymous, how do I track the coins I have?</li>
</ol>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-03-09T22:26:42.900Z
This site is better for answering specific questions. It seems like reading the wikipedia page would be a good start given you have so many questions.
placeybordeaux
<currencies><buy-bitcoins>
Please break it down: Bitcoin for dummies
Everything On Camera
# Please break it down: Bitcoin for dummies

(Asked by: username_0 on 2013-03-09)

Bitcoin for dummies:

1. Is this like time banking/ time exchanges?
2. Is this like barter?
3. How do I get-earn-buy-create a bitcoin from nothing?
4. Do I have to buy a bitcoin?
5. If so, with what do I buy one?
6. If this is anonymous, how do I track the coins I have?

**Tags:** currencies, buy-bitcoins

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: This site is better for answering specific questions. It seems like reading the wikipedia page would be a good start given you have so many questions.  

---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2013-03-09. Score: 3

Maybe read a basic article like the one on ZDNet, *[Bitcoin: A guide to the future of currency](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/bitcoin-a-guide-to-the-future-of-currency/50601)*, to get a basic overview. They have a video on that page, too. This site is more focused on specific questions.

1) Bitcoins are units of currency that use encryption algorithms to ensure their authenticity.

2) It's kind of like bartering... The same way a dollar is.

3,4,5) You can purchase bitcoins from an exchange, or you can get someone to pay you in bitcoins (by selling a product or service). You can also "mine" bitcoins... which is a whole other question.

6) Bitcoins are anonymous in that there is no central tracking.


---

### Answer by username_3 on 2013-03-09. Score: 3

The best is to come to [IRC chat](https://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=bitcoin&uio=d4) where lots of people are ready to answer all your questions.

The most active Bitcoin chat room is #bitcoin on [freenode](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freenode) network. Follow the link or use the [mIRC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIRC) software.

Please also read the article *[What is Bitcoin? The future digital currency explained](http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/features/internet/3434167/what-is-bitcoin-future-digital-currency-explained/)* and the follow-up comments.

~~~
Just search for: "Bitcoin explained with slices of pizza"
for this article,

Bitcoin is like an open book to all in digital format, with the registration of all balances of each bitcoin address, actually, with the record of all transactions between bitcoin addresses in chronological order.

All that help keep this book's transactions and balances, and they are called "miners" - in analogy to the exploration of gold - and actually nothing is created, crafted or minted, but you may happen to get a few slices of a huge "digital pizza" with a limit of twenty-one million slices, as a reward for verifying transactions and keep the book open to all and reliable on a distributed computer network - that is, without a central point of failure.
These rewards - or pizza slices - are called Bitcoin coins but note that they actually exist only as balances associated with a Bitcoin address and corresponding private key.

What is kept private is these private keys of each Bitcoin address and this information is stored in a special file called a wallet (wallet.dat) that protects this information, making it invisible and hermetic as much as possible.

The work of the mining computers is to make transactions become irreversible, using trial and error until they find a place in the chain of blocks which make them irreversible. The difficulty level of this trial and error to find a place in the so-called blockchain is the scheme that makes transactions irreversible and avoids double-spending from bitcoins from these addresses in the chain of transactions, and it is adjusted every two weeks, so that a new block is inserted every ten minutes - no matter the amount of computational power of the network -, with corresponding reward of pizza slices, not coins, to "miners" that actually created the last block to be added - usually collaborating in pools with other miners in order to have more chances of not missing the reward.

They receive the pizza slices, not coins to the Bitcoin address they designate for that purpose.

This reward is called coinbase and is what makes the value of bitcoin coins for circulation. Yes, they are coins, not slices of pizza. But if you want to think about it with slices of pizza, you can happily say that actually there are no coins: simply the "miners" receive slices of pizza in their designated Bitcoin addresses, thus allowing transactions between bitcoin addresses.

The numbers used by the mysterious Big Daddy of bitcoin, [Satoshi Nakamoto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto), are somewhat arbitrary and empiric, but they work well and seem to have been inspired by gold mining anologies, as well as to provide a reasonable monetary mass, that could become comparable to the U.S. dollar by 2030.

The private key and Bitcoin address form a pair and are like a key and a locker, or as a password and your bank account. But their mathematical properties are very particular, because it is possible to calculate in some fractions of a second bitcoin address, in a pair, from its private key. But the reverse would take countless millions, if not billions of years as it would have to be done by trial and error, even if quantum computers were used.

It is possible to think that with a lot of luck you could find a private key and generate a pair so that the corresponding Bitcoin address had balance worth stealing, but the probability of this happening is certainly much less than three lightnings falling upon the same person and him remaining alive, though that may have already happened in the past.

To decrease the risk you must have many Bitcoin addresses in your wallet. Having the bitcoins well distributed in our(s) wallet(s) ensures it will be much less likely there will be a chance of seeing all your bitcoins disappear magically.
If you encrypt your wallet and have the bitcoins distributed in many addresses, you must be safe.

The limit of 21 million bitcoins results from the accumulation of 50 bitcoins reward each ten minutes during the first four years (50 x 6 x 24 x 365 x 4 = 10,512,000), plus, half, 25 bitcoins reward each ten minutes during the following four years (5,256,000 + 10,512,000= 15,768,000), plus, half, 12.5 bitcoins reward each ten minutes during the following four years (2,628,000 + 5,256,000 + 10,512,000 = 18,396,000)... and so on and so forth, till the reward of the fours years before is so that it doesn't add nothing to the total of "almost" 21 million, more precisely: 20999999.97690000 BTC.

Here is the code that imposes this limitation,

```
//In main.cpp

int64 static GetBlockValue(int nHeight, int64 nFees)
{
    int64 nSubsidy = 50 * COIN;

    // Subsidy is cut in half every 210000 blocks, which will occur approximately every four years.
    nSubsidy >>= (nHeight / 210000);

    return nSubsidy + nFees;
}

```

Here are some links that may be helpful:

* *[A Bitcoin Primer](http://coinlab.com/pdfs/a-bitcoin-primer.pdf)* by Chris Koss and Mike Koss
* *[Bitcoin Non-Technical FAQ](http://blog.oleganza.com/post/32725987418/bitcoin-non-technical-faq)* by Oleg Andreev

> **Comments:**
> **username_4**: My goodness, that's the longest single block of text I've seen on this site! Some paragraphs would certainly help your answer be easier on the eyes... and perhaps would also help make it "suitable for dummies" as this question requests  
> **username_4**: I should also add that code is very definitely inappropriate on an answer "for dummies"!  

---

