Bitcoin, Money and The World of Make Believe

Confused by Bitcoin?

Of course you are!

That's really the whole point.  If you know about Bitcoin, you are likely a criminal, a would-be criminal, a law enforcement official, or one of the alleged people who created Bitcoin,

I do not understand Bitcoin, despite a perfunctory Google search. Bitcoin is a decentralized, anonymous database, or something like that.  Bitcoin has value because -- like actual money -- some people believe it does.

Speaking of actual money, like dollars and cents, consider how "real" they are.

You carry a wallet full of paper bills and a pocket with a few coins.  Is the paper and alloy inherently valuable? No.

 It represents something.

Money is as confusing and weird as Bitcoin, but we have become used to it,  Eons ago, someone realized that gold is in very short supply and hence, is inherently valuable.  Rarity seems to be the source of value -- supply and demand -- whatever that means.

Our currency is "backed" (?) by gold stored in Fort Knox, or that's how money used to be explained in school.  Seashells and other items were the first money, but they became impractical.  So someone, Adam Smith, perhaps, came up with a representational system.  A one dollar bill represents one actual dollar somewhere. Where? I don't know, but presumably someone like Paul Krugman does. 

Paper money is lighter than silver or alloy coins, so it is, our was, the way criminals bought and sold stuff. Money, inn theory, is untraceable and it is fungible, meaning that it can be used in other ways, like making small paper airplanes.

The New York Times, the newsprint version, explained today that our government was able to trace Bitcoins paid for ransom after cybercriminals seized a pipeline (how?) in the United States. The Department of Justice was apparently able to reclaim a large part of the ransom, by somehow determining the private password of the Bitcoin database or blockchain that the criminals used.

Bitcoin  is virtual, meaning it does not really exist, sort of like Britney Spears or the Royals. The stuff of Bitcoin is stored on servers somewhere, huge conglomerations of computers in storehouses in places like like Utah or Mars. 

So is our "money." So, in fact, is almost everything else not counting private property like cars and houses. I've read about arcane activities such as mining Bitcoin, which would make sense to people who'd understand Bitcoin.

If there are any.