Bitcoin For Dummies by Peter Kent

Bitcoin For Dummies by Peter Kent

1 
Bitcoin 
Basics

IN THIS PART . . .
Discovering where Bitcoin comes from
Understanding how money works
Learning how Bitcoin uses cryptography
Sending messages to the Bitcoin blockchain
Using private keys to prove Bitcoin ownership

IN THIS CHAPTER
» Discovering the history of digital 
currency
» Finding out about early Bitcoin and 
its creator
» Understanding what money (and 
Bitcoin) is and is not
» Exploring the benefits of Bitcoin

Chapter 1

Bitcoin in a 
Nutshell
For a mere teenager, the Bitcoin network has certainly had a 
big impact on the world, transacting more than US$12.4T in 
2021 alone. As we write these words, Bitcoin has a market 
capitalization (total value) of $918,705,395,133, which is almost a 
trillion dollars. (The market cap is the total number of Bitcoins 
in “circulation” multiplied by the current market price of a sin-

gle Bitcoin.)
But that’s a current low price; just a few weeks prior, it had a 
combined value of almost 1.3 trillion dollars. By the time you read 
this, the value may be higher, lower, or the same. That’s one of 
the things about Bitcoin: Its market price can be very volatile, as 
you’ll soon learn if you spend a little time watching the markets.
But the impact we’re talking about is not just referring to Bit-

coin’s current market value. In fact, the market cap of Apple, 
Inc. is more than three times that of the Bitcoin network. How-

ever, a comparison with Apple might be apropos right now. 

Bitcoin For Dummies by Peter Kent