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A CRYPTO CHEAT SHEET

Can you give us a plain-English explanation of cryptocurrency, as if you were explaining it to your grandfather?

These are digital assets, as opposed to currencies. You can’t touch and hold bitcoins, but when you log into your online banking, you see your balance and trust that it’s there. You can own some gold without ever seeing and touching the actual gold bars. We are entering a world in which a growing portion of the things we value can be digital-only and still hold value. Some of the appeals of crypto assets: speed, privacy, reduced friction. Traditional money transfers can take days to settle, and in 2021 that’s unacceptable. Crypto transactions get recorded on a public, immutable ledger for all to see, and you cut out a middle man like a bank taking a cut and/or slowing the process.

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Newsweek International
April 02 - 09
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