Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, a form of electronic cash. It is a decentralized digital currency without a central bank or single administrator that can be sent from user to user on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network without the need for intermediaries.

Transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain. Bitcoin is unique in that there are a finite number of them: 21 million.

Bitcoins are created as a reward for a process known as mining. They can be exchanged for other currencies, products, and services.

As of February 2015, over 100,000 merchants and vendors accepted bitcoin as payment.

Bitcoin is often called the first cryptocurrency, although prior systems existed. Bitcoin is more correctly described as the first decentralized digital currency.

One of the first supporters, adopters, and contributors to bitcoin was programmer Hal Finney. Finney downloaded the bitcoin software the day it was released, and received 10 bitcoins from Nakamoto in the world’s first bitcoin transaction on 12 January 2009.

The value of the first bitcoin transactions were negotiated by individuals on the bitcointalk forums with one notable transaction of 10,000 BTC used to indirectly purchase two pizzas delivered by Papa John’s.[29]

On 6 August 2010, a major vulnerability in the bitcoin protocol was spotted. Transactions weren’t properly verified before they were included in the transaction log or blockchain, which let users bypass bitcoin’s economic restrictions and create an indefinite number of bitcoins. On 15 August, the vulnerability was exploited; over 184 billion bitcoins were generated in a transaction, and sent to two addresses on the network.

Within hours, the transaction was spotted and erased from the transaction log after the bug was fixed and the network forked to an updated version of the bitcoin protocol.[30][31] This was the only major security flaw found and exploited in bitcoin’s history.

In 2013 one user claimed to have lost 7,500 bitcoins, worth $7.5 million at the time, when he accidentally discarded a hard drive containing his private key.

[32] A backup of his key(s) would have prevented this.

On 24 January 2018, at 16:30 UTC (11:30 AM EST),[33][34] Bitcoin’s price hit $10,000 for about an hour before dropping about 5 percent from its peak.[35][36] The MtGox exchange briefly halted bitcoin deposits and withdrawals on Sunday due to “heavy traffic” but resumed withdrawals within about two hours.[37] Trading on MtGox’s dollar denominated market rose to over 50%, as bitcoins fell from $266 to below $10 but rose back above $100 within minutes.[38][39] Bitcoin prices then fell from $966 to below $500 after starting July at around $2,000 per coin.

[40][41][42] On 31 July 2014 MtGox closed down its website and exchange service,[43] eventually filing for bankruptcy protection in Japan amid reports that 744,000 bitcoins had been stolen.[44][45] By September 2017 roughly 850 people invested their life savings in high-risk securities such as Bitcoin.[46].

Bitcoin shorting is an act of borrowing bitcoins to sell them at a lower price hoping to buy them back at a lower price so you can pocket the difference as profit. Shorting can be done with any asset including stocks, commodities or currencies like Bitcoin (BTC). When shorting you borrow an asset from someone hoping its price will fall so you can buy it back at a lower price and return it to them while pocketing the difference as profit. Short selling is considered more advanced than buying because it requires forecasting ability along with some understanding of margin trading which most people lack.

It’s also riskier because if your forecast is wrong and prices rise you will incur losses.

Conclusion:

Shorting Bitcoin is an act of borrowing Bitcoins to sell them at a lower price with hopes of buying them back at an even lower price so that you can pocket the difference as profit. While this may seem like a easy way to make money, it is actually quite risky because if your forecast is wrong and prices rise you will end up losing money instead of making a profit.