Cryptocurrency breakdown with local expert

Cryptocurrency is omnipresent in the news and growing in popularity around the world. Facebook is even jumping into the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency to receive widespread attention. Now, with Facebook's Libra, it's becoming more likely cryptocurrency will become mainstream. But what exactly is cryptocurrency? Is it reliable and safe to use? We talked with a local expert known as the Bitcoin Beamer, who broke down a concept that can sometimes be hard to fully grasp. Here's our Q&A with one of Kansas City's most knowledgeable people about cryptocurrency: what is it and what's it used for? Bitcoin Beamer: "Cryptocurrency is basically a digital form of money. It uses cryptography to encrypt all the transactions from point A to point B. ... There's a lot of utilities. The biggest one is paying for goods and services." Similar to sending an email. ... Every wallet address for cryptocurrency is like a bunch of alpha-numeric digits, so you copy and paste their wallet address, you type in how much you want to send them, you put in your password, and you click send. (That) sends them that amount in that cryptocurrency, which, depending on what cryptocurrency it is, would dictate how much in, say, U.S. dollars it's worth."