Once again, I was scrolling on my phone, reading about yet another guy who bought like 1,000 Bitcoin back in 2010 and is now a multi-millionaire.
Halfway through the article, I stopped.
Hold up.
Most people didn't even have a smartphone in 2010.
How in the world was he able to even buy the Bitcoins?
Then he mentioned it: "I mined them on my computer."
He… mined… 1,000 Bitcoins?
Ok, well, what does that even mean? Nowadays people download an app, make an account, and buy it.
But then I asked myself - how do Bitcoins even exist in the first place?
After some more research, I found out that…
Bitcoins aren't created by some company.
They're not printed by a bank.
They're MINED.
Like gold.
Sounds weird, I know.
But the creator of Bitcoin basically hid MILLIONS of Bitcoins behind millions of mathematical puzzles.
Now, how do you solve the puzzle?
You need to guess a number.
But here's the thing:
Over the years, with Bitcoin popularizing, the number you need to guess has gotten RIDICULOUSLY long.
You can’t mine it on a regular computer anymore.
Big tech giants have facilities full of supercomputers that just guess the numbers all day.
And then they sell it to people for a profit.
Okay, cool.
So there's 2 ways to get Bitcoin:
I either buy it from someone who already mined it, or I mine it myself.
But let's be real for a second.
I don't have hundreds of thousands to start a facility full of computers to guess Bitcoin numbers.
So once again… back to the office we go.