Cryptocurrencies. You may have heard of Bitcoin, which is an example of a cryptocurrency. What about the other currencies, like Litecoin and Ethereum? How do cryptocurrencies work? Will they be used in the future? I'll have to admit, there is still a lot of confusion and worries about this topic, similar to the questions just mentioned. But these cryptocurrencies, which are completely digital and not tangible at all, really are the future, and that can not be said without evidence. In fact, as Bitcoin's value just soared above $12,000, reaching a more than 17% increase in the past week, more and more companies in the United States and around the world are beginning to use Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a form of payment. And although the number is small, this number is growing. And as the world continues the transition to a completely digital side, electronic currencies wouldn't hurt.

So how do these cryptocurrencies work? To answer this question, I will use bitcoin as an example. Bitcoin works as a blockchain system; there is a chain of consumers who do transactions to each other, and these transactions are called "blocks." These blocks must be verified by other people called miners (by using computers to solve puzzles surrounding these blocks) before the transaction goes through, and once a miner verifies 100 blocks, they are rewarded with Bitcoins. This is the only way Bitcoins are put into the world. The Bitcoin price is determined by a simple supply and demand system. In addition, because Bitcoin is based on a direct peer-to-peer system without a central authority, skipping the middleman and has heavy encryption, the Bitcoin blockchain system is hard to hack. So with cryptocurrency safety, the digital transition, soaring prices of cryptocurrencies and some businesses now accepting these cryptocurrencies, it isn't hard to see that cryptocurrencies really are the future.