 Hey there, this is Bruce Wagner, host of the Bitcoin Show on OnlyOneTV. The first question I get asked about Bitcoin all the time is, what's a Bitcoin? It's the state of the art in money. It's a new form of electronic money. It's already become the gold standard of digital currency. You know how email changed old fashioned mail forever? Well Bitcoin is changing money forever. Based on some old technologies and some new technologies, Bitcoin is the result of combining the very state of the art in cryptographic security, plus the idea of a limited quantity commodity similar to gold or silver, where there's only so much of it, and using it as money, and the idea of a massive number of computers connected by the internet forming a strong, resilient, indestructible peer-to-peer network. It's called a cryptocurrency. Since the invention of Bitcoin, money will never be the same. The next question everyone asks is, why would I use Bitcoin? Bitcoin is the world's first completely decentralized currency. The history of mankind has never seen a currency like this. This means that there's no issuing entity, therefore no single point of failure. In many ways, Bitcoin is more secure than your bank. If your bank were to fail, your money could be gone forever. The Bitcoin network is made up of millions of computers all over the world connected via the internet. The entire internet would have to go away in order for the Bitcoin network to fail. Bitcoin is as easy as sending an email, just one click. Bitcoin payments are sent with one click just like an email. And transactions are always as free and as fast as email. Bitcoin has zero transaction fees. In the United States, merchants pay $45 billion a year in credit card transaction fees. And for what? Do transactions can be reversed as charge backs up to six months later? That doesn't seem fair at all. Bitcoin transactions are free, whereas credit cards and other online payment systems typically cost 3-5% or more per transaction, plus various other exorbitant fees. Bitcoin usage and transactions are always free. It doesn't matter if you send one cent or a million dollars, the transaction cost is always the same, free. There's no such thing as a charge back with Bitcoin. Payments are irreversible. This is great for merchants. No matter whether you accept Bitcoin payments for your business or otherwise, payments cannot be reversed. There's no such thing as a charge back, no way to get a bounced check, no reversed transactions, not with Bitcoin. Payments can only be refunded if and when the recipient voluntarily, as a separate new transaction, decides to send the money back. This protects merchants from fraud. Credit cards and PayPal can and often do reverse transactions up to six months later. Bitcoin is as anonymous as you want it to be. This is very unique in electronic currencies. Just like with cash, transactions can be totally anonymous. Transactions are only identified by your Bitcoin address and you can have as many Bitcoin addresses as you want. You can create another new Bitcoin address with one click anytime you want to. So Bitcoin transactions can be made to be as anonymous as you want them to be. Financial Privacy Gone are the days of identity theft. In the old days, credit cards required merchants to have proof positive of your identity in order to shop there because a Bitcoin address can only be used to receive money. It cannot be used to extract money. With Bitcoin, the merchant only needs to know two things. Did you pay? And where do you want your stuff sent to? Isn't that the way it should be? Does your banker really need to know what you buy online? Your account cannot be frozen. No one can freeze your account and keep your money with Bitcoin. As long as you keep control of your Bitcoins yourself and don't keep the Bitcoins on an online bank or wallet service. See the security tab for recommendations. No Big Brother Third parties cannot prevent or control your transactions. Transfer money easily through the internet without having to trust middlemen, no central bank, no central authority. There's no censorship of who you're allowed to send money to. No more blocking who you can make payments or donations to just because someone doesn't agree. It's not a bank. It's not PayPal. What may be the best feature of all, buy, buy PayPal, buy, buy bank. It's more secure than online banking existing in the world today. Traditional banks use encryption when you log on to their online banking. The cryptography technology used in Bitcoin is even more secure. In other words, if it were to ever become possible to hack into it, then all the world's banking would already be compromised. With today's known technology, experts all agree it's absolutely unhackable and unbreakable. Bitcoin is transparent and verified. Bitcoin is a free open source software project, which means it has total transparency. Millions of programmers all over the world see every bit of the program's source code. They constantly monitor it, study it, and report on it to verify that there are no flaws or irregularities. With Bitcoin, you can send payments to anyone worldwide. Bitcoin has no artificial national boundaries or limitations on where money can be sent or on how much or how little can be sent. You can now use Bitcoin to shop online for millions of items or make a donation to a charity or organization, and you can even make purchases at physical stores and shops and restaurants that now accept Bitcoin using a free app on your phone or any device with a web browser. There's no central bank. No privately owned Federal Reserve central bank can print more money for themselves. Not in Bitcoin anyway. The value of each Bitcoin does not go down when the privately owned corporation known as the Fed decides to print more dollars. In fact, Bitcoin might even go up in value as it triggers more people to seek out alternatives to storing their money in the world's fiat currencies. Which leads to what may be the best benefit of all. There will never be more than 21 million Bitcoins. That's right, there's a limited number of Bitcoins. The number of Bitcoins is limited by the design of the network. This number can never be increased. And Bitcoins are virtually infinitely divisible. There'll never be a shortage of Bitcoins because of this. Currently, Bitcoins are divisible up to 8 decimal places. For example, you can send someone 0.0000001 of a Bitcoin. In the future, as the value of Bitcoin goes up, you might be sending your favorite coffee shop 3 millionths of a Bitcoin for that cafe latte. Also in the future, Bitcoin could become even more divisible if needed, as the value of one Bitcoin becomes larger and larger. Okay, sounds pretty good. So the next question I always get is, can I exchange Bitcoins into normal cash? Of course you can. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, there are many ways to do it. You can exchange Bitcoins for cash in person, or by postal mail or FedEx, or direct deposit into your bank account. There are many ways to do it. On this site, bitcoinme.com, just click on the sell tab at the top for more details about that. What else can you do with Bitcoins? Well, you can sell them, you can hold on to them and watch them grow in value. You can spend them, shop with Bitcoins, products and services you want. You can donate them to charities and causes that are important to you. And of course you can accept them. You can accept Bitcoins for payment in your business, no matter what you sell. Bitcoin is absolutely ideal for charitable organizations that are doing amazing work like EpicChange.org, for example. People can donate with one click. They can donate tiny amounts or large amounts with no transaction fees. And of course, many small amounts really add up. The other thing people do with Bitcoin is invest. What type of investment goes up 1336% per year? Obviously, many people are looking at Bitcoin as an amazing investment opportunity, especially getting in on the ground floor of such a revolutionary technology at this early stage. One Bitcoin was about 22 cents around December 8, 2010. And now one Bitcoin is trading for about $2.94 as of December 8, 2011. If our math is correct, that's about an increase of more than 13 times its value in only 12 months. At that rate of growth over the course of the year, that was an annual return on investment of 1336.36%. In the same year, that gold went up 25% and silver went up 25%. Bitcoin went up 1336%. Bitcoin is seen by many as an excellent investment. So for more information about Bitcoin, go to bitcoinme.com and click on the Use tab to find out how to get started using Bitcoin quickly and easily for non-technical users, how to accept Bitcoin in your business, the Accept tab, how to buy Bitcoin, how to protect your Bitcoin securely, how to send someone Bitcoin, how to sell Bitcoin for cash, how to shop or donate Bitcoin, get connected with the community, and contact us with any questions. And be sure to watch the Bitcoin Show on OnlyOneTV. I'll see you there.