Bitcoin (₿) is a decentralised digital currency that may be sent from one person to another over the its network.
The cryptocurrency was developed in the year 2008 by an unknown person or group of people using the name “Satoshi Nakamoto”.
Bitcoins are generated as a reward for a computer-driven process known as mining.
It has been chastised for its usage in unlawful transactions, the high quantity of electricity (and thus carbon impact) required for mining, price volatility, and exchange theft.
Hal Finney, who had built the first reusable proof-of-work system (RPoW) in 2004, was the recipient of the first bitcoin transaction.
“Grayscale Bitcoin Trust” is the first corporate BTC holder. They have 654,885 Bitcoin, which is 3.12% of the entire supply.
Only 1.3 million BTC are now available for purchase on cryptocurrency exchanges.
In El Salvador, BTC became legal money alongside the US Dollar in 2021.
What is unique about Bitcoin?
Only 21 million BTC will ever be created, making Bitcoin unique.
This will never be a constraint because transactions can be denominated in smaller sub-units of a it, such as bits (1,000,000 bits in 1 BTC).
Why Bitcoin is called “Decentralised”?
There is no centralised authority.
The Network is peer-to-peer, with no central servers.
No central storage & the its ledger is distributed & decentralized.
The ledger is open to the public and can be stored on a computer by anyone.
The ledger is maintained by a network of equally privileged miners; there is no central administrator.
Anyone can start as “Miner”.
Competition ensures that the ledger is kept up to date. It is unknown which miner will create a new block until it is uploaded to the ledger.
Bitcoins are issued in a decentralised manner. They are given out as a reward for making a new block.
Without requiring approval, anyone can create a new BTC address (the BTC equivalent of a bank account).
Anyone can send a transaction to the network without requiring approval; the network just verifies that the transaction is valid.