/biz/ - Business & Finance

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/20a761/can_someone_help_me_understand_what_ive_found/cg1ewy9

"tl;dr version: Bitcoin is just a great digital way to solve the old problem of transferring intangible/unmovable property.

The overall process of transferring coins is far older than these whitepapers, or even the internet. The basic concept is used for real estate transactions. In the US, every county recorder's office has a massive ledger of property transactions, which anyone can view.

To over-simplify, it says "Adam gave property # 875562 to Bob", "Bob gave property # 875562 to Charlie", "Charlie gave property # 875562 to Dana".... These records work because they are publicly available, even if they are inconvenient to actually find because the system is so old. Every member of society can look at the transaction chain and see that it is accurate. If a society was willing to be completely inefficient and super-redundant, each member could have their own ledger and dispatch photocopies to the other ledgers after each update.

Each transaction is signed by the buyer and seller to verify that both approved. Bitcoin just put the system online, gave everyone the ledger, requires everyone to use signatures that are very hard to forge, and occasionally gifts new property to the most diligent ledger-writers."