[@nakamoto2008bitcoin]. It is a ‘decentralized’ currency, in that one does not need financial intermediaries in order to perform electronic transactions and it does not have a central bank or other authority in control of monetary policy.

Simply put, Bitcoin can be described as a decentralised ledger of transactions. The role of the verifying third party found in centralised systems is played by the Bitcoin network participants, who contribute computational power and are rewarded in the form of new amounts of crypto-currency. Designed to be a currency for the internet, Bitcoin is not localized to a particular region or country, nor is it intended for use in a particular virtual economy. It is not backed by any local government or private organisation and is being circulated in the real economy on an increasing scale. Because of its decentralized nature, this circulation is largely beyond the reach of direct regulation, monetary policy, oversight and money supply control that has traditionally been enforced in some manner with localized private monies and e-money.

Bitcoin is certainly not the only crypto-currency, and there are numerous papers discussing both identified weaknesses of the current protocol, as well as possible improvements to both centralised and decentralised currency 