# Bitcoin Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency introduced in a 2008 whitepaper by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, launched as software in January 2009. It became the first working cryptocurrency, spawning an entire ecosystem of blockchain projects and driving speculative price runs that turned it into a mainstream financial story. ## Overview Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that runs on a peer-to-peer network with no central bank or government controlling it[1]. Transactions get written to a public ledger called the blockchain, which acts as a permanent, time-stamped log of every transfer ever made in the currency[7]. Once a transaction is confirmed by the network it cannot be reversed, so the coins get treated more like physical cash than a credit-card charge[9]. The system relies on public-key cryptography and a process called mining, where computers compete to solve SHA-256 hash puzzles in exchange for newly created coins and transaction fees[6]. The total supply is capped at 21 million coins, released on a predictable schedule that will finish issuing around the year 2140[8]. Its design makes bitcoins portable, divisible, and difficult to counterfeit, which is why supporters sometimes describe them as "a Swiss bank account in your pocket"[9]. ## How It Spread The first major Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, launched on July 18, 2010, letting people buy and sell coins for regular currency and giving merchants tools to accept Bitcoin as payment[5]. Adoption stayed niche at first but expanded through the online black market Silk Road, which used Bitcoin as its only accepted currency and was estimated to be generating more than $1.2 million a month in sales by July 2012[5]. Around the same period sites including 4chan, Reddit, WikiLeaks, and OkCupid added support for Bitcoin donations or payments, and every one of those transactions was ultimately recorded on the same shared blockchain[7]. Prices climbed sharply through early 2013, doubling from about $13.50 at the start of the year to over $27 by mid-February, cracking $100 on April 1, and hitting an intraday high of $194.90 on April 8 before a wave of exchange hacks and DDoS attacks rattled the market[5]. In March 2013 the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued guidance clarifying that Bitcoin exchange businesses qualified as Money Services Businesses subject to anti-money-laundering rules, while individual miners and users did not. The Wall Street analyst Nick Colas called the price run a "perfect storm" of tech-savvy buyers, distrust of banks, European deposit taxes, and the constrained supply built into the protocol itself[8]. The bigger mainstream moment came in late 2017. Bitcoin crossed $10,000 on November 28, 2017 and pushed past $11,000 the next day, more than a 1,000% gain since January of that year, and the BBC compared the run-up to the Dutch tulip mania of the 1630s and the dot-com bubble[5]. Corporate adoption followed, with Microsoft accepting Bitcoin for digital goods starting in December 2014 and Cboe Global Markets and CME Group launching Bitcoin futures contracts in December 2017. Apple briefly cut against the trend by pulling the Blockchain wallet from the iOS App Store in February 2014 without public explanation. ## How to Use Users typically hold Bitcoin in a wallet, either software running on a phone or computer or a hardware device that stores the private keys offline. Payments get sent from one Bitcoin address to another and broadcast to the network, where miners bundle them into a block and add that block to the chain[1]. Each new block layers more cryptographic proof-of-work on top of prior transactions, which is what makes them practically impossible to reverse after a few confirmations[7]. Merchants accepting Bitcoin often wait for one to six confirmations, roughly an hour, before treating a payment as final[6]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Bitcoin? Bitcoin is a decentralized peer-to-peer digital currency that runs on an open cryptographic network with no central bank or issuer[1]. ### Where did Bitcoin come from? It was described in a whitepaper posted to the Cryptography Mailing List by Satoshi Nakamoto on November 1, 2008, with the software going live in early January 2009[2]. ### What does Bitcoin mean? The name refers to both the network's units of account and the protocol itself, a currency built from cryptographic "bits" instead of physical coins[9]. ### How do you use Bitcoin? You keep coins in a wallet tied to a private key, then send them to another address on the network where miners confirm the transaction into the blockchain[6]. ### Is Bitcoin still popular? Bitcoin is a classic of the crypto space and the reference point for every altcoin that came after it, though its price and cultural attention swing widely between cycles[5]. ### Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? Satoshi Nakamoto is the pseudonym used by Bitcoin's creator, whose real identity has never been verified and who stopped posting publicly by late 2010[4]. ### What is the Genesis Block? The Genesis Block is Bitcoin's first block, mined on or around January 3, 2009, and it hides the headline "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks" in its coinbase data[3]. ### Why is Bitcoin's supply capped at 21 million? The protocol releases new coins on a fixed, decreasing schedule that finishes issuing around the year 2140, and the design was announced with a 21 million ceiling from the start[8]. ### What was Mt. Gox? Mt. Gox was the first big Bitcoin exchange, launched on July 18, 2010, and at one point claimed to handle more than 80% of global Bitcoin trading[5]. ### When did Bitcoin first cross $10,000? Bitcoin's price broke $10,000 on November 28, 2017 and passed $11,000 the following day, capping a year with more than 1,000% in gains[5]. ### How does Bitcoin mining work? Miners run computers that repeatedly hash block headers with SHA-256 until they find one below a target value, which earns the miner newly created coins plus fees from the transactions inside that block[6]. ## References 1. [https://bitcoin.org/en/]() 2. [https://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg09959.html]() 3. [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block]() 4. [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto]() 5. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/bitcoin]() 6. [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining]() 7. [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Block_chain]() 8. [https://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg10142.html]() 9. [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Main_Page]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/bitcoin Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library