BitCoin is entirely placed in the first camp. It was not designed to be backed by anything real. It only claims to be decentralized and have a level of inflation more predictable than anything else.
You can accept payments now. You don't need to wait to generate a coin. You do need to wait to download the entire block chain, which could take a few days. You'll know it's done when the number in the lower right of the BitCoin window has stopped incrementing.
Here are some places where you can spend coins: http://www.bitcoin.org/smf/index.php?topic=30.0
You do lots of SHA-256 hashes of a random number until the hash result is less than the network's current target number. This happens at a predictable rate, and when it does, you win a certain number of BitCoins.
Also the technical paper: http://www.bitcoin.org/sites/default/files/bitcoin.pdf
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BitCoin is entirely placed in the first camp. It was not designed to be backed by anything real. It only claims to be decentralized and have a level of inflation more predictable than anything else.
You can accept payments now. You don't need to wait to generate a coin. You do need to wait to download the entire block chain, which could take a few days. You'll know it's done when the number in the lower right of the BitCoin window has stopped incrementing.
Here are some places where you can spend coins:
http://www.bitcoin.org/smf/index.php?topic=30.0
See:
http://www.bitcoin.org/wiki/doku.php?id=block
You do lots of SHA-256 hashes of a random number until the hash result is less than the network's current target number. This happens at a predictable rate, and when it does, you win a certain number of BitCoins.
Also the technical paper:
http://www.bitcoin.org/sites/default/files/bitcoin.pdf