Cryptocurrency: Cryptic? Not Really!

It's made the news for having celebrity advocates, international uptake and acceptance, and being a hot topic for investments.

You can't hold it in your hand, but you can buy a car with it.

Undeniably, it's likely to become a big part of how we look at money as part of the larger picture.

How does one make sense of this new movement in virtual currency though?

Bitcoin, the first and most popular crypto, was created back in 2009 by a gentleman named Satoshi Nakamoto. It became the first decentralized currency to use blockchain technology, meaning information about who has access to what assets is encrypted and distributed to all participants, who then validate it.

The benefit of this underpinning to most cryptocurrencies is the inherent security.

It's immediately evident, due to this distributed ledger, if something has been tampered with.

In a slightly tangential manner; blockchains can actually be used to secure all kinds of things. Hospitals, traditional banks and data warehouses have begun using it to better their information security.

So it's secure by design and generally speaking it's appreciating in value.

Great! How do you score some?

Well there are two ways. You can buy it, or you can mine it.

Buying it is by far and away the easiest option, there are lots of trustworthy sources (called exchanges) on which you are able to swap your actual dollars for Bitcoin, Ethereum, or any other of the hundreds of other virtual currencies.

As with any investment, it's best to seek the advice of a professional before sinking any meaningful amount of money.

It can be fun, however, to purchase a couple of dollars worth just to see the value go up and down.

Mining crypto is for much more serious stakeholders, but is still deeply interesting for the rest of us.

Whereas one would mine coal using a machine to dig in the earth, one uses math, via a computer to mine for crypto!

The cool blockchain technology which we just learned about is made up of "blocks" of those verified transactions.

For crunching the complicated math involved in this verification process, you're awarded digital currency.

In the case of Bitcoin, it will only be a fraction of a full coin, but if you're able to use powerful hardware to do lots of these calculations very quickly, it can add up.

This mining effort is the only way which new Bitcoins come into existence, controlling the value of the currency.

Now you have some crypto currency in your "pocket."

What kind of things could you buy with it?

The most famous adoption of big ticket Bitcoin purchases comes from Tesla, wherein you could quite literally purchase a car by paying entirely in crypto.

As it stands today, however, there's no need to go for anything quite so grand.

Furniture, fast food, event tickets, flights; even some colleges will allow cryptocurrency as payment for tuition!

While it's taken some time to get to this point as a usable form of payment, its acceptance is picking up speed.

Debates continue for what the future holds for Bitcoin and the other currencies it has inspired.

On the one hand a global, secure currency solution has its benefits when it comes to things such as trade.

On the other, the security and anonymity generally afforded to crypto users makes it ideal for nefarious use.

As it grows (even) more widespread it's likely to bring with it a better idea of how the regulations will pan out.

It's absolutely certain however that crypto will continue to sculpt the way we treat all aspects of currency.

Richard Noble is the founder of Want For Tech, an IT company based in Glasgow.