Bitcoin

Bitcoin
Prevailing bitcoin logo
Logo of Bitcoin
Denominations
PluralBitcoins
Symbol
(Unicode: U+20BF BITCOIN SIGN)[1]
CodeBTC[a]
Precision10−8
Subunits
11000Millibitcoin
11000000Microbitcoin
1100000000Satoshi[b][2]
Development
Original author(s)Satoshi Nakamoto
White paper"Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System"
Implementation(s)Bitcoin Core
Initial release0.1.0 / 9 January 2009 (2009-01-09)
Latest release25.1 / 19 October 2023 (2023-10-19)[3]
Code repositorygithub.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
Development statusActive
Written inC++
Source modelFree and open-source software
LicenseMIT License
Ledger
Ledger start3 January 2009 (2009-01-03)
Timestamping schemeProof of work (partial hash inversion)
Hash functionSHA-256 (two rounds)
Issuance scheduleDecentralized (block reward)
Initially ₿50 per block, halved every 210,000 blocks
Block reward₿3.125 (as of 2024)
Block time10 minutes
Circulating supply₿19,591,231 (as of 6 January 2024)
Supply limit₿21,000,000[c]
Valuation
Exchange rateFloating
Demographics
Official user(s)El Salvador[4]

Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC[a]; sign: ) is the first decentralized cryptocurrency. Nodes in the peer-to-peer bitcoin network verify transactions through cryptography and record them in a public distributed ledger, called a blockchain, without central oversight. Consensus between nodes is achieved using a computationally intensive process based on proof of work, called mining, that requires increasing quantities of electricity and guarantees the security of the bitcoin blockchain.[5]

Based on a free market ideology, bitcoin was invented in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto, an unknown person.[6] Use of bitcoin as a currency began in 2009,[7] with the release of its open-source implementation.[8]: ch. 1  In 2021, El Salvador adopted it as legal tender.[4] Bitcoin is currently used more as a store of value and less as a medium of exchange or unit of account. It is mostly seen as an investment and has been described by many scholars as an economic bubble.[9] As bitcoin is pseudonymous, its use by criminals has attracted the attention of regulators, leading to its ban by several countries as of 2021.[10]

  1. ^ "Unicode 10.0.0". Unicode Consortium. 20 June 2017. Archived from the original on 20 June 2017. Retrieved 20 June 2017.
  2. ^ Bradbury, Danny (November 2013). "The problem with Bitcoin". Computer Fraud & Security. 2013 (11): 5–8. doi:10.1016/S1361-3723(13)70101-5.
  3. ^ "Bitcoin Core Releases". Retrieved 24 October 2023 – via GitHub.
  4. ^ a b "El Salvador's dangerous gamble on bitcoin". The editorial board. Financial Times. 7 September 2021. Retrieved 7 September 2021.
  5. ^ 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. Retrieved 26 October 2022.
  6. ^ S., L. (2 November 2015). "Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?". The Economist.
  7. ^ 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.
  8. ^ Antonopoulos, Andreas M. (2014). Mastering Bitcoin: Unlocking Digital Crypto-Currencies. O'Reilly Media. ISBN 978-1-4493-7404-4.
  9. ^ 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.
  10. ^ 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.


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