What is Bitcoin mining?

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Enigmatic Developer.
The primary designer of the bitcoin specification is a "person" named Satoshi Nakamoto. Person is put in quotes here because Nakamoto has not connected "his" identity with a publicly known person. Satoshi Nakamoto could be an individual man or woman, an internet handle, or a group of people, but nobody actually knows. Once their work of designing the Bitcoin network was complete, this person or persons essentially disappeared.
Multiple individual people and teams of developers have been theorized to be the "real" Satoshi Nakamoto, with no conclusive proof for any one of them at the time of writing. Whoever he, she, or they are, Satoshi Nakamoto is estimated to be in possession of billions of US dollars worth of Bitcoin at current market rates.
Resistance From Conventional Investors.
Many experts in standard money markets and investments consider Bitcoin a poor choice for investing money. The extreme volatility of Bitcoin versus investments like stocks, bonds, and standard commodities makes larger and older institutions wary. In addition, some investors and investigators consider Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to be either a passing fad (an economic bubble) and thus an extremely risky means of investment, or a fraud in and of itself, a "Ponzi scheme" for the benefit of Satoshi Nakamoto and other early investors.
On the other hand, it's possible that some of these statements are made specifically to manipulate the value of Bitcoin: JP Morgan Chase has been accused of publicly calling the worth of Bitcoin into question via CEO statements while investing in it at the same time. As stated above, use caution when dealing in Bitcoin either as a means of purchasing goods or services or investing.
Bitcoin Cash Fork and Other Cryptocurrencies.
On August 1st, 2017, long debates between bitcoin proponents and disagreements on how to solve its problems resulted in a currency split. The Bitcoin standard was broken in two, with the original system unaffected and the new Bitcoin Cash standard added. This was less like a stock market split and more like a software fork. Every person or organization who owned Bitcoin in any amount immediately owned an equal amount of Bitcoin Cash, with sales and transfers of both currencies occurring normally after the split. Like the original Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash is entirely digital and has no real-world physical component (despite the name).
The split is a hard fork in software terms. The separate Bitcoin Cash peer-to-peer system allows for eight times more transactions per block, making it a better (but not necessarily equal) competitor to credit and debit cards for constant online and in-person sales. The operators of Bitcoin Cash hope that it will become a more widely-accepted currency for standard purchases, like coffee shops or supermarkets.
Because of the newer system, Bitcoin Cash has not benefited from the explosive growth of value that the original Bitcoin Cash has experienced. At the time of writing, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is trading at approximately $325 per unit, less than 10% of the value of the original Bitcoin. That's not necessarily a bad thing for the new standard: a currency with a smaller range of market fluctuation and a slower, more steady growth rate may be appealing to businesses. But at the moment, Bitcoin Cash transactions aren't supported by any notable merchants, aside from existing cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets.
Without major support from large online or physical retailers, Bitcoin Cash seems unlikely to become as successful as the original Bitcoin. It's more likely that the forked standard will join the ever-expanding list of competing cryptocurrencies without any notable application beyond the cryptocurrency market itself. These competing currencies use peer-to-peer systems similar to the original Bitcoin, but with significant changes in cryptographic methods and terms. Examples include Litecoin, Ethereum, and Zcash.
None of the competitors to Bitcoin has reached any notable fraction of its current value, and support from retailers outside of the growing and somewhat speculative niche of cryptocurrency exchanges is minimal.
Bitcoin and cryptocurrency are fascinating developments, a mark of the desire for participants in the information age to lessen their dependency on the economic and legal systems that prop up institutions from before the 21st century. It's certainly made plenty of fortunes in its brief existence...and lost more than a few as well. The long-term viability of Bitcoin as a medium for wealth has yet to be determined.