Spam and the Byzantine Empire: How Bitcoin tech REALLY works

Why does Bitcoin work? Fraudsters should have left it in cinders years ago, and might have done, if it wasn’t for two things: spam and the Byzantine Empire.

A Bitcoin is basically an entry in a ledger that is distributed across a network of computers. Bitcoins are transferred between parties by noting the transaction in the ledger. This might sound just like any other banking system except there’s a crucial difference: no one is in charge of the ledger.