Bitcoin are as real as this image.
More.
What may be less easy to grasp is that U.S. dollars are likewise an illusion. They too consist mainly of numbers out there in cyberspace. Sometimes they’re stored in paper or coins, but while the paper and coins are material, the dollars they represent are not. U.S. dollars are not backed by anything other than the faith of the fools who accept it as payment and of other fools who agree in turn to accept it as payment from them. The main difference is that, for the moment at least, the illusion, in the case of dollars, is more widely and more fiercely believed.
I discovered Maria Bustillos’ article 10 months after it was published. I discovered it in researching my own article, which I ultimately decided to distribute under the same title (with credit, of course).
This is my tribute to Maria Bustillos:
https://lifeboat.com/blog/2018/10/you-dont-understand-bitcoin-because-you-think-money-is-real