Where can I find the newly created bitcoin?
During Chinese New Year, many people rush to the banks to get the newly printed banknotes so they can put it in red packets and give it to kids. It is a tradition for Chinese to buy new clothes to get rid of bad luck of the past year. That’s why even the banknotes inside the red packets are new. However, printing new banknotes requires a huge amount of papers which are produced from trees. Let’s encourage our parents to use bitcoin in the red packets and help to save the earth! Yet, your dad doesn’t really understand how bitcoin works but he still wants to give you red packets with new bitcoin to show that he also follows the new trend. So where can your dad find new bitcoin?
If you have watched the TV news or read newspaper regarding bitcoin, you certainly have seen the picture in the beginning. However, there is no physical bitcoin. 99% of them are scams and the rest are actually paper wallets covered by the metal components which are subject to a very high risk of robbery. Since the producers know all the private keys in the paper wallet, he can technically steal all bitcoin. So, you cannot say the bitcoin is shiny so it must be new. In fact, you can find all the newly created bitcoin online. https://blockchain.info/tx/cf612be0acee0521d106e5dba1580e7bd7acb91076077bf1e1f4ccbb80285cd1 shows a typical transaction for new bitcoin. As I mentioned in the ‘Miner VS bitcoin counterfeiter’ article, bitcoin nodes store transaction records instead of account balances. Each transaction record consists of input and output. For newly created bitcoin, it is obvious there should not be any input so only output exists in the transaction. Lastly, the only way to own a new bitcoin is to mine it by yourself so good luck :D
