What Bitcoin is

Many things at once

Bitcoin is a lot of things:
a distributed system, a revolutionary technology, an open-source software, a peer-to-peer network, a massive computing power… but at the end of the day, Bitcoin is money.

What is money?

Intuitively, we all think we know the answer to this question, but if we pause and think for a moment we quickly realize that words fall short, hand-waving begins and circular definitions start to pile up.
And yet, most of our lives are spent working to earn money.

There isn’t a single definition of what money is, but one that works really well is this:

A technology to move value across space and time.

This already tells us a lot.
First of all, we’re talking about a technology and, as we know, technologies can take many forms: some are more efficient at their purpose, others less so.

Value is trickier to define, but we can say that it’s the importance or usefulness of something, shown by what people are willing to give, sacrifice, or trade for it.

Finally, we have space and time.

We can understand the definition of money better with an example:

Imagine you’re good at something and offer that service to others.
Since it has value for them, there will be demand, and they’ll recognize your contribution through something that lets you preserve the value you created (after all, your time is your most important resource).
So you need a way to ‘crystallize’ the time and value you’ve put into the service. That’s money.
Money then lets you transfer this value across space: for example, sending it to someone far away
and time: for example, saving it or passing it down to your grandchildren.
Since the time and skills you put into providing a valuable, in-demand service come from you, only you should own the money you earn, and it should be entirely your choice when and how to spend it.

Keep reading for a brief history of money!