human
I've been hearing a lot of buzz about bitcoin. What is it and how does it work?
assistant
Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that uses peer-to-peer technology to facilitate instant payments. It was created in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto, who designed the protocol and released the software as open source. The system is secured through cryptography, which makes it nearly impossible to counterfeit or double spend bitcoins. Transactions are verified by network nodes and recorded in a public distributed ledger called the blockchain. This ledger is maintained by miners who use specialized hardware to solve complex mathematical equations.