Bitcoin is a digital currency, so it’s intangible, and it’s (in theory) middleman-free because it doesn’t rely on a bank or other institution to keep track of people’s money balances. Instead, Bitcoin relies on a network of computers around the world to keep a shared log, or ledger, of every past payment. This “shared public ledger,” as it’s known, is called a blockchain, and it’s basically a high-tech version of Yapese villagers’ shared memory of past payments.
