Bitcoin FAQ
In layman's terms, Bitcoin is a digital currency based on strong cryptographic principles, and designed to enable users to send money over the Internet without needing a credit card or bank account. Please see:
Who runs Bitcoin? What is the company behind Bitcoin?
In short, no one runs Bitcoin. Bitcoin is run collectively by the users who uses the Bitcoin Client, and any changes to the Bitcoin system have to be approved by the majority of users before they are implementated.
What is a Bitcoin address?
A Bitcoin address is a unique identifier which allows you to receive Bitcoins. With PayPal you send funds to an email address, and similarly with Bitcoin you send funds to a Bitcoin address. For example, this is one of our Bitcoin addresses: 1JArS6jzE3AJ9sZ3aFij1BmTcpFGgN86hA
Please verify that you have copied the destination address exactly before sending Bitcoins to it. Bitcoin transactions are not reversible!
What is a private key?
A private key is a secret code which allows the user to prove his ownership of his Bitcoins. Every Bitcoin address has a matching private key, which is saved in the wallet file of the person who owns the balance. The private key is mathematically related to the Bitcoin address, and is designed so that the Bitcoin address can be calculated from the private key, but importantly, the same cannot be done in reverse.
Please keep your private keys safe, and make periodic backups to prevent the loss of Bitcoins. Anyone with your private keys can spend your Bitcoins!
What are the fees involved?
The transaction is usually free if the sum transacted is greater than 0.01 BTC. A token sum is imposed to provide some incentive to the miners to include the transaction in the blockchain..
At the moment, many transactions are typically processed in a way where no fee is expected at all, but for transactions which draw coins from many Bitcoin addresses and therefore have a large data size, a small transaction fee is usually expected.
Please see: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fees#Rules_for_calculating_minimum_fees