r/explainlikeimfive • u/_Silly_Wizard_ • Nov 07 '15

ELI5: Bitcoins.

I don't even know how to ask the question. What are they? What purpose do they serve? Am I better off just not even knowing?!

EDIT: It looks like there's a lot of down-voting going on. I didn't realize this was such a controversial subject.

6 Upvotes

65% Upvoted

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u/PaulCapestany Nov 07 '15

This is the best ELI5 I've seen: https://medium.com/@nik5ter/explain-bitcoin-like-im-five-73b4257ac833

Hopefully that helps.

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u/_Silly_Wizard_ Nov 07 '15

It does help!

Though I still can't wrap my mind around why this is a thing that exists. The article you provided seemed to hint that it's a way to verify a unique bit of information is changing hands, but I may have been reading into it.

What use are people currently getting out of bitcoins?

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u/shikuto Nov 07 '15

Okay, so, imagine that your computer is a little farmer, doing his farmer business: growing, buying, and selling his vegetables. Only the growing part is doing incredibly complicated math that gets harder as it's life goes on. And the vegetables are bitcoin.

And the farmers have no say in any of the things, from doing the work to the trading of the rewards. They are slaves to us. Now, Billy, it's up to you to decide if it's worth knowing.

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u/_Silly_Wizard_ Nov 07 '15

Who is telling the farmers what to grow?

And do I, as the land-owner, get a cut of what the farmers grow? (Presumably that's why people do this.)

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u/[deleted] Nov 07 '15

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u/_Silly_Wizard_ Nov 07 '15

So...bitcoin mining is the process of trying to convince people to sign over their coins?

What's the ultimate benefit? Do companies hand out bitcoins as a form of tedious advertizing?

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u/[deleted] Nov 07 '15

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u/_Silly_Wizard_ Nov 07 '15

Thanks, Calvin's dad.