Crypto explained: Whether it is making major financial market news, all over social media thanks to an Elon Musk tweet, or consistently talked about around the office, it’s pretty much impossible to go a day without cryptocurrency popping up somewhere. So what is cryptocurrency? Cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual asset that acts as a form of decentralised currency. Originally aimed as a way to make cross-border transactions that were cheaper, faster, and more secure than traditional means, cryptocurrencies have grown into a financial revolution of sorts.
Secured through advanced cryptography on a distributed network of an immensely massive number of computers, cryptocurrency is realistically impossible to hack or counterfeit and is free from government control. These networks that leverage blockchain technology provide an irrefutable ledger of every transaction and they cannot be altered or removed in any way. Most commonly, cryptocurrencies are traded by buying and selling the asset.