The Oxford dictionary describes Cryptocurrency as “A digital currency in which encryption techniques are used to regulate the generation of units of currency and verify the transfer of funds, operating independently of a central bank.”

You may have heard of Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin or any of the other lesser known coins.  Bitcoin was developed in 2009 and has grown significantly since that time.  Bitcoin was created as a form of currency that is not controlled by any one government or bank.  The decentralized nature of the payment network is what makes it so powerful.  No single bank, government or group controls the currency since all transactions that occur with Bitcoin are shared on a ledger that is shared with many nodes in the network that spans the globe.

This global, decentralized feature allows the currency to be used and accessed by all.  This is very attract to the citizens of many countries that have an unstable currency due to political agenda or social issues.  The benefit of removing banks from banking gives more power back to the end user and will allow for a lower cost to use and transfer money in a global market.

If you have ever purchased items overseas or attempted to transfer money between accounts you may have noticed it can take several days to complete the transaction and the risk for fraud/scams are very high.  Cryptocurrency plans to solve many of these issues by making this process faster, transactions cheaper to process and stopping fraud.