bitcoin
is a digital currency which aims to do
away with all the problems we have
paying for things online
you may think that the system we have is
pretty good
but everything we buy today has to go
through a bank or credit card company
who take a cut of the transaction
and who rely on our trust that they'll
do everything right
after a while those payments start to
build up and added to that is security
you have to trust your card company to
keep your details safe
many people have tried to work out how
to have a payment system without that
middleman
but then there's another problem how do
you prove that you've paid for something
or even that you have that money at all
without someone vouching for you
it's so serious it has a name the double
spending problem
then in 2008 a solution was offered by
an anonymous programmer going by the
name of satoshi nakamoto
nakamoto left a paper on a popular
cryptography blog
which proposed a system of currency that
solved all of these fiddly problems
his proposal was that instead of a bank
or credit card company recording every
transaction in one central ledger
all of the users would record all of the
transactions at the same time
as a result any attempt to fool the
community would be noticed and the
payment rejected
no one user government or bank can force
a fee on a payment
or control its flow the result is a
cheaper
quicker and easier way to spend money
even across national borders
so this is bitcoin and it's already
starting to have an impact on people's
lives
within months of the proposal it was
being used to buy and sell goods
although not always from the most
scrupulous of traders
but it's not all shady businesses some
shopping sites take it
you can buy pints in london and even pay
for your university tuition
as you might have heard there are
problems while some are profiting from
getting involved early
others are losing out from this volatile
and young market
and people are founding companies to buy
up lots of bitcoins
but as it's designed to have a limited
amount ever in circulation
that might cause problems down the road
there's so much uncertainty around
bitcoin
some people genuinely think this is the
future
others are terrified it could destroy
our economy
but many from both sides agree that if
we could get bitcoin to work
or something like it if we can trust a
digital currency
to work without the middlemen then the
way the world economy functions
could be transformed for the better
[Music]
we all know that stephen hawking has
worked on some of the biggest questions
about our cosmos
but what are those ideas