What is Bitcoin

Bitcoin is the world’s first decentralized digital currency, also known as a cryptocurrency, and was a groundbreaking innovation that has changed the way we think about money and assets forever.

Being a digital currency, Bitcoin benefits from not needing physical coins or notes - it can be sent to anyone, peer-to-peer, anywhere in the world, as long as they have an internet connection.

Crucially, Bitcoin isn’t owned or controlled by any single government or bank. Instead, it runs on blockchain technology, which is a public record book shared across thousands of computers that keeps track of every single transaction and is available for anyone to view. That ensures the control is distributed rather than held by a single authority.

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What is everyone's fascination with Bitcoin?

By not being under the control of any single government or institution, Bitcoin has two unique features that traditional ‘fiat’ currencies like the dollar or euro can't offer:

It is hard-coded with a maximum supply of 21 million (which is where our name comes from: 21shares). This means it is the only currency that exists that can not be devalued as a result of central banks (Federal Reserve, Bank of England, European Central Bank) printing more more money to cope with soaring and unsustainable government debt
It can’t be seized by your government, as long as it is held in ‘cold storage’ and you don't voluntarily share your private keys

Both of these features have led many to believe Bitcoin offers a unique long term investment opportunity, and that it should be a core holding within a diversified investment portfolio. This is true for both individual and professional investors who are looking for both portfolio growth and protection against inflation or currency debasement. More recently, governments and companies have also been buying Bitcoin to hold in their treasury as a reserve asset, also for protection against inflation or currency debasement of their strategic cash reserves.