The Bitcoin Currency - a New Instrument Used in Conducting Business?

• Author: Catalin Cristian Selisteanu
• Profession: Faculty of Law, University of Craiova, Romania
• Pages: 216-228

The Bitcoin Currency - a New Instrument Used in Conducting

Business?

PhD. student Cătălin Cristian SELIŞTEANU

1

Abstract

The Bitcoin „phenomenon” has spread its wings especially over the past two

years, experiencing an unprecedented growth and being supported by several companies

from the international scene. The result is the possibility of buyin g goods and services

using the Bitcoin currency. But the most important thing is the state support which, at the

present time, either does not exist, or is in the moment of granting, requiring time. Bitcoin

is a cryptocurrency created and given to users (located in front of a computer con nected

to the Internet) who solve a special category of mathematical problems. Computers

around the world „extract” Bitcoin, competing with each other. This extraction can be-

come quite co mpetitive among users because n ew Bitcoins are created at a predictable

and fixed rate. The more users join the network, the more d ifficult it becomes to make a

profit for each of them. Bitcoin is mainly used in the Hidden Internet - that portion of the

Internet that is not accessible to the general public through a regular browser - in pur-

chasing illegal goods and services.

Keywords: Bitcoin, criptocurrency, digital currency, transaction, banking insti-

tution.

JEL Classification: K22, K33.

1. The determination of the Bitcoin currency's characteristics

● The emergence of the electronic currency. In conducting business,

the currency played an essential role since the Antiquity, constituting the „spark”

that led to its expansion and giving some value to the goods that were its object.

Materialized in the forms of sale, purchase, hiring or transport of goods, the busi-

ness field had a strong commercial character, and the invention of the currency

constituted a step forward in its evolution.

It is believed that currency appeared on the territory of the ancient state

of Lydia (where nowadays Turkey can be found). This is apparent from the writ-

ings of Herodotus, who stated that „the first people, to our knowledge, are the

Lydians, who monetized gold and silver coins for their own use.”

2

Furthermore,

these coins were also adopted by great empires, such as Greece or Rome, and

1

Cătălin Cristian Selişteanu – Faculty of Law, University of Craiova, Romania, cristian.cristi-

nel19@yahoo.com.

2

Dan Drosu Șaguna, Tratat de drept financiar și fiscal, Ed. All Beck, Bucharest, 2001, p. 29.