10 What Are Bitcoins?
Put simply, a bitcoin is a type of digital currency. More specifically, it’s a type of cryptocurrency. We’ll cover more of the specifics later on, but in essence, a bitcoin is a unit of real money that exists solely in the digital realm. On another note, if you see Bitcoin capitalized, it more often than not refers to the Bitcoin Network, or the Bitcoin software that’s used to “mine” bitcoin — rather than a single unit of the currency itself.
It’s hard to know how many people are using bitcoin, but some estimates indicate that there are at least 12.77 million bitcoin wallets (though many bitcoin users have multiple). And while bitcoin used to be worth just pennies, the current exchange rate — in U.S. dollars — is $17,898.99 to 1 bitcoin.