For Bitcoin newbies, imagine Bitcoin as a gigantic ledger. Every bitcoin wallet has a copy of this ledger. So if I was running a standard Bitcoin wallet on this computer — then this computer would have on it a copy of all Bitcoin transactions, ever. Yes, ALL of them.
Decentralization is important because there’s nothing for Bitcoin’s enemies to shut down.
When you make a bitcoin transaction, you can add a little text to it, like a memo on the check you write.
When the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto, who invested Bitcoin, made the first entries in the ledger, he wrote that newspaper headline:
January 3, 2009, Times of London; “Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”.
I get chills thinking about this.