Bitcoin is a digital currency, tied to no government, that can be exchanged for U.S. dollars and other national currency. It consists of a public ledger of all bitcoin in circulation and the transactions in which they are used. To own bitcoin, a user must possess two codes; a public key that identifies individual bitcoin, and a private key akin to the signature needed to write a check. To carry out transactions, those codes are passed between bitcoin wallets, where they are stored by users.