What are Bitcoins?
Bitcoin is a digital currency that has many users. Bitcoins are not real objects, so some people call it an imaginary currency ("Bitcoin and the Future of Money"). Bitcoin transactions are made online and they are all saved in a file called "the Blockchain" (Sparkes, "Bitcoin to launch satellites as global backup"). Just like real money, Bitcoins can be used to buy things, however, not all businesses accept Bitcoins. There are small businesses that have websites where you can buy items with Bitcoins, and there are even some restaurants that accept Bitcoins. There are rumors that Netflix will start allowing customers to pay with Bitcoins ("Bitcoin and the Future of Money").
How do I get Bitcoins?
There are two ways to get Bitcoins. The first way is to buy them with real money. There are websites that will let you buy Bitcoins with your real money (Lee, "12 questions about Bitcoins you were to embarrassed to ask"). If you don't trust those websites, don't worry. Some cities will soon be getting Bitcoin ATM's (Lee, "12 questions about Bitcoins you were to embarrassed to ask"). You put in real money or credit cards, and Bitcoins are added to you're account. If you don't want to spend money on Bitcoins, there is another way to get them. Bitcoin is owned and run by the users of Bitcoin, there isn't an owner of this company. Because of this, Bitcoin doesn't have a central computer that processes all there transactions. Users can agree to run some of Bitcoins transactions, and in return, new Bitcoins are created for them. This is called "mining", and the people who do this are "miners" (Maney, "The other side of Bitcoin").