You’ve probably heard about Bitcoin. You know a little bit about it, but you still don’t know exactly what it is, or how it moves. Let’s take a look. You can imagine the journey starting on the floor of a factory in Shenzhen, China. An applicationspecific integrated circuit, or ASIC, is a microchip designed for a specific purpose. In this case, to solve Bitcoin blocks, which is how bitcoin transactions are confirmed, and new bitcoin is created. This process is commonly referred to as "mining". Around the world, computers with ASIC chips like this are being used for Bitcoin mining. This one is going to a mining farm in Iceland, where the power comes from renewable energy. The ASIC chip in the computer tries to be the first to solve computational puzzles. The time it takes to solve these problems regulates the release of Bitcoins into circulation. When the puzzle is solved, the computer that solved it is rewarded with new Bitcoin.
