What is Cryptocurrency? Cryptocurrency is a digital currency with data and transactions stored using blockchain technology. Simply put, this is a digital peer-to-peer currency exchange, meaning that no bank holds the “funds” and the cryptocurrency is not tied to a physical currency. Because of the decentralized and immutable data storage, cryptocurrency is secure and nearly impossible to counterfeit. The most popular and valuable cryptocurrency is Bitcoin which was introduced in 2009 and accounts for about 68% of the world’s cryptocurrency, but there are hundreds of others that can be “mined” and traded. The security and anonymity of cryptocurrency trading make it safe and easy to transfer funds between parties. Each account has a public key that can be found to initiate transactions and a private key that is known only to the owner and is used to authorize and authenticate transactions. Transaction information is stored using blockchain technology and is irreversible and unchangeable.
