The price of bitcoin, the original and most valuable digital currency, rose to a record high of nearly $8,000 on Wednesday — close to a 900% jump in 2017 alone.Bitcoin started as an experiment eight years ago in an attempt to create a global, decentralized store of value. These days it behaves less like a currency and more like a stock, operating in an extremely volatile, multi-billion dollar market that trades bitcoin and hundreds of other newly fabricated digital tokens.
While the actual monetary value of online “cryptocurrencies” depends on who you ask, financial institutions and speculators do agree on one thing: the underlying technology, blockchain, has potential to completely revolutionize how data sharing works.Blockchain technology is already being implemented by companies and governments around the world, and will be crucial to the “Internet of things” that governs our interconnected electronic devices.VICE News explains how Blockchain works.— Animation by Joel Plosz.This segment originally aired on November 9, 2017, on VICE News Tonight on HBO.
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