Welcome to the Tech Policy podcast. I'm Evan Schwarger, your host. On today's show, the basics of Bitcoin.

As Bitcoin has become an increasingly viable alternative currency adopted by a growing number of people, it's still kind of an obscure thing.

I've worked in tech policy for almost two years and I don't really understand how it works.

Maybe that's because I'm bad at my job or maybe because I haven't had someone explain it to me.

So joining me to discuss this is Michael Bombase, Law and Policy Adjunct Fellow at Tech Freedom.

Michael, thank you for joining us.

So let's start with the most basic of questions.

Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, virtual currency.

What the hell is it?

It's many things.

At base, it's really software.

And I think, you know, for the hardcore Bitcoin crowd, you definitely can get lost in the weeds

and you'll start talking about mining and all these more advanced concepts.

So I think for most people, it's helpful to just start with things that you already know.

So reasoning by analogy a little bit.

And Bitcoin is really software, and you can download it.

It's open source. Anyone can go get it and then there's the underpinnings of it that matter a lot.

And those core pieces are the blockchain, which is the underlying technology. And then Bitcoin,

as it's talked about is really the use of blockchain for payments. And that's

really the excitement and sort of the quantum leap forward for computer science and even for

the movement of money was blockchain. And they sort of came together at once. But they are

different. Bitcoin, as it's used now, is for payments.

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