Basically, Bitcoin is conceived as a type of digital money that you can use online. But what's cool about it, and what sets it apart and makes it unique from previous forms of digital currency, is that it's not controlled by any central authority. Instead, it's run by a bunch of computers all over the world that work together to keep track of everyone's transactions.

The guy who created Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, didn't really say why he made it, but he wrote this thing called a whitepaper that explained how it works. And in that paper, he talked about how regular money can be a pain because you have to rely on banks and stuff to keep track of it. But with Bitcoin, you don't need a bank, so it's more like a peer-to-peer system where people can send money directly to each other without any middlemen getting in the way.