It is cryptocurrency. This post starts by an admission of ignorance. Why does it exist, and why should I care, are questions I have yet to wrap my mind around. To me it is the tulip bulb thing of centuries ago.
Latest cause to recognize it, at Crabgrass, Seattle Times carrying a WaPo item.
Why are people doing this? Who knows? Crabgrass is dazed and confused about the entire Gestalt of it.
A websearch. If you can buy a Tesla with it, it is real, since a Tesla is real. But can you still buy a Tesla with it?
U.S. Federal Reserve notes - another fiat money, you can take to a Seattle pot shop and buy bud. Or edibles. Show up there with an iPhone talking bitcoin, and as likely as not the large gentleman who checks ID will escort you out of the shop.
Perhaps not, but that is the image in mind.
It is all based on trust, and on what tangible item you can exchange fiat money for, where tangibility is always a measure of actual clout.
Not a cryptocurrency holder, I do not know what it can be exchanged for, where, with tangible existence on the other side of the deal. Blockchain sounds like a neat techno thing, but so what?
Wikipedia, for anyone interested, here, here, here and here. Read each, and do you know any more than you did before seeing the links?
It seems to be an experiment in trust. Just like banking. As likely as not, conventional banking, central banks and all, consume less scarce energy than the whole of the cryptocurrency community, chasing what?