Can bitcoins be stolen?

 If you're anything like me, you've heard the word "bitcoin" being thrown around a lot lately. It's rumored to be the future of money, but it can't be that simple since it's not even backed by anything tangible. Is this really just some elaborate pyramid scheme?

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency that is created by mining. Want to know more about this cryptocurrency craze? 

Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that offers very low-to-no fees to peers on the network. This is mostly due to the fact that there are no banks or government institutions behind it. The currency can be used to buy things electronically, but it's most commonly used as an investment.

What is bitcoin mining?

Mining is the skeleton of the bitcoin process (much like mining diamonds is the skeleton of industrialization). It's how new bitcoins are made.

You're probably thinking "well I can just buy bitcoin, duh." So let's say you have some bitcoins and want to get some more. You'd have to set up your own mining rig, which is a computer that solves cryptographic puzzles very fast. These puzzles take place inside the Bitcoin network, and they are the only way new bitcoins can be produced.

The cryptocurrency puzzle is solved by hashing blocks of transactions together with a hash algorithm called SHA-256 (yes, it's the same algorithm in Minecraft).

Since there are only a finite amount of bitcoins available for production, it's important that transactions are processed as soon as possible. This means you have to solve the puzzle really fast (you can look up a tutorial if you want).

The fastest computer in the world can only solve puzzles at about 15 millionths of a second. Let's say you want to switch to Bitcoin mining as your occupation today. You'd have to get both a computer and a powerful graphics card in order to do any good. It's highly unlikely anyone will ever solve the puzzle if they use an ordinary computer.

A better alternative would be to team up with other miners and get a server farm set up. This will give you a much better chance at solving the puzzles, making more bitcoins and earning more money.

How can you steal bitcoins?

Bitcoin balances are stored by public keys, which are very long strings of numbers and letters that act as unique addresses. The public key is just used to send bitcoins to a destination. The private key is used to send bitcoins from a destination.

So let's say you have 10 bitcoins in an account and someone in your house wants to take them for themselves (I don't condone stealing, but I'm trying to make a point). All the thief would have to do is find your private key.