Cryptocurrency

A cryptocurrency is a digital currency that uses cryptography to secure transactions and operates on a decentralized network rather than through a central bank. Instead of a single institution keeping the ledger, thousands of computers around the world maintain a shared record of who owns what, and cryptographic signatures prove that only the rightful owner can spend their funds.

Bitcoin, launched in 2009, was the first cryptocurrency, created as peer-to-peer electronic cash that needs no bank in the middle. For example, if you send 0.1 BTC to a friend, the transaction is broadcast to the Bitcoin network, verified by participants called miners, and permanently recorded on the blockchain — no payment processor approves or reverses it.

A common misconception is that cryptocurrencies are anonymous; most are actually pseudonymous, meaning every transaction is publicly visible and linked to addresses that can often be traced back to real identities. Today the term covers a wide range of assets: currencies like Bitcoin, platform coins like Ether that pay for computation, stablecoins pegged to the dollar, and thousands of smaller tokens. What unites them is that ownership and transfer are enforced by open software and mathematics rather than by a trusted intermediary.