Folks ask us about Bitcoin all the time, at the booth, at the feed store, and in our inbox. Here are plain answers to the questions we hear most, plus a short guide to the big news stories people keep asking about.
This is general education, not financial advice. Nobody here is telling you to buy or sell anything.
Bitcoin is a digital currency that lets people send money straight to each other without a bank or government in the middle. It runs on a technology called a blockchain, a shared record of every transaction kept by thousands of computers around the world.
Bitcoin was introduced in 2008 by a person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto. Nobody knows for sure who Satoshi is. Read The Story of Satoshi Nakamoto and Bitcoin.
When someone sends Bitcoin, the transaction goes out to the network, gets checked by miners, and is added to the blockchain. Because the record is spread out, no single company controls it, and nobody can spend the same coin twice.
A wallet is a tool to store, send, and receive Bitcoin. There are a few kinds:
Whoever holds the keys controls the coins. Keep them safe.
It depends on where you live. In many places it's legal to buy, sell, and use Bitcoin, but some countries restrict or ban it. Check your local rules first.
Bitcoin's price comes from supply and demand. It moves with how many people want it, news about laws and rules, and the wider economy.
Mining is how transactions get checked and added to the blockchain. Miners use powerful computers to solve hard math puzzles, and they earn new Bitcoin and fees in return. Read How Bitcoin Mining Works.
The supply is capped at 21 million. More than 19 million have already been mined, and the rest will come out slowly until around the year 2140.
People also ask about headlines they've seen. Here's what a few of the big ones meant, in plain words. These are facts as of 2025, not predictions.
In March 2025, a U.S. executive order set up a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. It holds Bitcoin the government already owned, mostly coins seized in legal cases. The order said it would be budget-neutral, meaning no taxpayer money is used to buy Bitcoin for it.
A number of public companies now keep some Bitcoin on their balance sheets. New accounting rules from the FASB let U.S. companies report it at its current market value instead of only writing it down when the price drops. That made it simpler for companies to hold.
Around May 2025, Bitcoin's total market value, about $1.9 trillion at the time, passed the estimated value of all the world's silver, about $1.85 trillion. That number changes every day, so take it as a snapshot, not a trend.
Sometimes Bitcoin's price falls when attention moves to something else, like a new hot stock or a different coin. The way Bitcoin works doesn't change when that happens: the 21 million cap, the blocks every ten minutes, and the rules stay the same.
Read Why Bitcoin Was Born and Bitcoin: Better Money by Design. And if you'd like to wear what you've learned, take a look at our Believe in Bitcoin T-Shirt or the I Believe collection.
This article is for general education only and isn't financial, legal, or tax advice.
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