Back Bitcoin Afrikaans Bitcoin ALS ቢትኮይን Amharic Bitcoin AN بيتكوين Arabic بيتكوين ARY بيتكوين ARZ বিটকইন Assamese Bitcoin AST Bitcoin Azerbaijani
 Official logo from bitcoin.org | |
| Denominations | |
|---|---|
| Plural | Bitcoins |
| Symbol | ₿ (Unicode: U+20BF ₿ BITCOIN SIGN)[1] |
| Code | BTC |
| Precision | 10−8 |
| Subunits | |
| 1⁄1000 | Millibitcoin |
| 1⁄1000000 | Microbitcoin |
| 1⁄100000000 | Satoshi[a][2] |
| Development | |
| Original author(s) | Satoshi Nakamoto |
| White paper | "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" |
| Implementation(s) | Bitcoin Core |
| Initial release | 0.1.0 / 9 January 2009 |
| Latest release | 28.1 / 9 January 2025[3] |
| Code repository | github |
| Development status | Active |
| Written in | C++ |
| Source model | Free and open-source software |
| License | MIT License |
| Ledger | |
| Ledger start | 3 January 2009 |
| Timestamping scheme | Proof of work (partial hash inversion) |
| Hash function | SHA-256 (two rounds) |
| Issuance schedule | Decentralized (block reward) Initially ₿50 per block, halved every 210,000 blocks |
| Block reward | ₿3.125 (as of 2024[update]) |
| Block time | 10 minutes |
| Circulating supply | ₿19,591,231 (as of 6 January 2024[update]) |
| Supply limit | ₿21,000,000[b] |
| Valuation | |
| Exchange rate | Floating |
| Demographics | |
| Official user(s) | El Salvador[4] |
| Website | |
| Website | bitcoin |
Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is the first decentralized cryptocurrency. Based on a free-market ideology, bitcoin was invented in 2008 by an unknown entity under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto.[5] Use of bitcoin as a currency began in 2009,[6] with the release of its open-source implementation.[7]: ch. 1 In 2021, El Salvador adopted it as legal tender.[4] It is mostly seen as an investment and has been described by some scholars as an economic bubble.[8] As bitcoin is pseudonymous, its use by criminals has attracted the attention of regulators, leading to its ban by several countries as of 2021[update].[9]
Bitcoin works through the collaboration of computers, each of which acts as a node in the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Each node maintains an independent copy of a public distributed ledger of transactions, called a blockchain, without central oversight. Transactions are validated through the use of cryptography, making it practically impossible for one person to spend another person's bitcoin, as long as the owner of the bitcoin keeps certain sensitive data secret.[7]: ch. 5
Consensus between nodes about the content of the blockchain is achieved using a computationally intensive process based on proof of work, called mining, which is typically performed by purpose-built computers called miners. These miners don't directly act as nodes, but do communicate with nodes. The mining process is primarily intended to prevent double-spending and get all nodes to agree on the content of the blockchain, but it also has desirable side-effects such as making it infeasible for adversaries to stifle valid transactions or alter the historical record of transactions, since doing so generally requires the adversary to have access to more mining power than the rest of the network combined.[7]: ch. 12 It is also used to regulate the rate at which new bitcoin is issued and enters circulation. Mining consumes large quantities of electricity and has been criticized for its environmental impact.[10]
- ^ "Unicode 10.0.0". Unicode Consortium. 20 June 2017. Archived from the original on 20 June 2017. Retrieved 20 June 2017.
- ^ Bradbury, Danny (November 2013). "The problem with Bitcoin". Computer Fraud & Security. 2013 (11): 5–8. doi:10.1016/S1361-3723(13)70101-5. ISSN 1361-3723. Archived from the original on 18 January 2023. Retrieved 25 November 2023.
- ^ "Bitcoin Core 28.1". 9 January 2025. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
- ^ a b "El Salvador's dangerous gamble on bitcoin". The editorial board. Financial Times. 7 September 2021. Archived from the original on 7 September 2021. Retrieved 7 September 2021.
- ^ S., L. (2 November 2015). "Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?". The Economist. Archived from the original on 22 November 2020. Retrieved 21 November 2023.
- ^ Davis, Joshua (10 October 2011). "The Crypto-Currency: Bitcoin and its mysterious inventor". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 1 November 2014. Retrieved 31 October 2014.
- ^ a b c Antonopoulos, Andreas M. (2014). Mastering Bitcoin: Unlocking Digital Crypto-Currencies. O'Reilly Media. ISBN 978-1-4493-7404-4.
- ^ Wolff-Mann, Ethan (27 April 2018). "'Only good for drug dealers': More Nobel prize winners snub bitcoin". Yahoo Finance. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
- ^ Sun Yin, Hao Hua; Langenheldt, Klaus; Harlev, Mikkel; Mukkamala, Raghava Rao; Vatrapu, Ravi (2 January 2019). "Regulating Cryptocurrencies: A Supervised Machine Learning Approach to De-Anonymizing the Bitcoin Blockchain". Journal of Management Information Systems. 36 (1): 65. doi:10.1080/07421222.2018.1550550. ISSN 0742-1222. S2CID 132398387. Archived from the original on 21 April 2024. Retrieved 29 November 2023.
- ^ Huang, Jon; O’Neill, Claire; Tabuchi, Hiroko (3 September 2021). "Bitcoin Uses More Electricity Than Many Countries. How Is That Possible?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 17 February 2023. Retrieved 26 October 2022.
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