Как сокращенно пишется биткоин

Как только в сети не употребляют и не коверкают это слово. Попробуем разобраться, как и в каких случаях его писать.

Слово Bitcoin изначально было введено Сатоши Накамото, когда он опубликовал свою статью «Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System». Он не ввел никакой жесткой терминологии на этот счет, так что нет «официальной версии», как оно пишется. Однако есть устоявшиеся правила, которые использует большая часть сообщества:

1. Bitcoin или Биткоин — (с заглавной буквы), когда речь идет о технологии, сети, концепции.

2. bitcoin или биткоин— (с строчной буквы), когда идет речь о единице валюты (2 биткоина, 5 биткоинов), для удобства еще используют сокращенный вариант BTC.

3. BitCoin, BitCoins, биткоен, биткоинт и т.п. — неверное написание, которого следует избегать.

Источник

«₿» redirects here. Not to be confused with «฿» for Thai baht.

Bitcoin

Prevailing bitcoin logo

Official logo of Bitcoin
Denominations
Plural Bitcoins
Symbol ₿
(Unicode: U+20BF ₿ BITCOIN SIGN)[a]
Code BTC,[b] XBT[c]
Precision 10−8
Subunits
 1⁄1000 Millibitcoin
 1⁄1000000 Microbitcoin
 1⁄100000000 Satoshi[2]
Development
Original author(s) Satoshi Nakamoto
White paper «Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System»[3]
Implementation(s) Bitcoin Core
Initial release 0.1.0 / 9 January 2009 (14 years ago)
Latest release 24.0.1 / 12 December 2022 (2 months ago)[4]
Code repository github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
Development status Active
Source model Free and open-source software
License MIT License
Ledger
Ledger start 3 January 2009 (14 years ago)
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[5]
Block reward ₿6.25[d]
Block time 10 minutes
Circulating supply ₿18,925,000[e]
Supply limit ₿21,000,000[6][f]
Valuation
Exchange rate Floating
Demographics
Official user(s)
  • El Salvador[8]
  • Central African Republic[9]
Website
Website bitcoin.org
  1. ^ Encoded Unicode version 10.0 (2017) in Currency Symbols block[1]
  2. ^ Very early software versions used the code «BC».
  3. ^ Compatible with ISO 4217.
  4. ^ May 2020 to approximately 2024, halved approximately every four years
  5. ^ As of 2022-01-10
  6. ^ The supply will approach, but never reach, ₿21 million. Issuance will permanently halt c. 2140 at ₿20,999,999.9769.[7]: ch. 8 

Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC[a] or XBT[b]; sign: ₿) is a protocol which implements a highly available, public, permanent, and decentralized ledger. In order to add to the ledger, a user must prove they control an entry in the ledger. The protocol specifies that the entry indicates an amount of a token, bitcoin with a minuscule b. The user can update the ledger, assigning some of their bitcoin to another entry in the ledger. Because the token has characteristics of money, it can be thought of as a digital currency.[10]

Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain. The cryptocurrency was invented in 2008 by an unknown person or group of people using the name Satoshi Nakamoto.[11] The currency began use in 2009,[12] when its implementation was released as open-source software.[7]: ch. 1 
The word «bitcoin» was defined in a white paper published on October 31, 2008.[3][13] It is a compound of the words bit and coin.[14]

The Library of Congress reports that, as of November 2021, nine countries have fully banned bitcoin use, while a further forty-two have implicitly banned it.[15] A few governments have used bitcoin in some capacity. El Salvador has adopted Bitcoin as legal tender, although use by merchants remains low. Ukraine has accepted cryptocurrency donations to fund the resistance to the 2022 Russian invasion. Iran has used bitcoin to bypass sanctions.

Bitcoin has been described as an economic bubble by at least eight recipients of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.[16]

The environmental effects of bitcoin are worth noting.[17] Its proof-of-work algorithm for bitcoin mining is designed to be computationally difficult, which requires the consumption of increasing quantities of electricity, the generation of which has contributed to climate change.[18][19] According to the University of Cambridge, bitcoin has emitted an estimated 200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide since its launch, [20] or about 0.04% of all carbon dioxide released since 2009.[21]

The UNESCO World Heritage Site, Virunga National Park, in eastern Congo, Africa pays for its operations, using a profitable Bitcoin mining operation powered by the Park’s hydroelectric plant.[22] Oil and gas giant Exxon mines Bitcoin using the natural gas flared by oil mining operations to generate their electricity.[23] Mining Bitcoin this way makes use of an otherwise «monumental waste of a valuable natural resource».[24] Still other miners reduce their overall energy bill by using the heat generated by their computers to heat their homes,[25] or hot tubs.[26]

Design

Units and divisibility

The unit of account of the bitcoin system is the bitcoin. Currency codes for representing bitcoin are BTC[a] and XBT.[b][30]: 2  Its Unicode character is ₿.[1] One bitcoin is divisible to eight decimal places.[7]: ch. 5  Units for smaller amounts of bitcoin are the millibitcoin (mBTC), equal to 1⁄1000 bitcoin, and the satoshi (sat), which is the smallest possible division, and named in homage to bitcoin’s creator, representing 1⁄100000000 (one hundred millionth) bitcoin.[2] 100,000 satoshis are one mBTC.[31]

Blockchain

Data structure of blocks in the ledger

The bitcoin blockchain is a public ledger that records bitcoin transactions.[32] It is implemented as a chain of blocks, each block containing a cryptographic hash of the previous block up to the genesis block[c] in the chain. A network of communicating nodes running bitcoin software maintains the blockchain.[33]: 215–219  Transactions of the form payer X sends Y bitcoins to payee Z are broadcast to this network using readily available software applications.

Network nodes can validate transactions, add them to their copy of the ledger, and then broadcast these ledger additions to other nodes. To achieve independent verification of the chain of ownership, each network node stores its own copy of the blockchain.[34] At varying intervals of time averaging to every 10 minutes, a new group of accepted transactions, called a block, is created, added to the blockchain, and quickly published to all nodes, without requiring central oversight. This allows bitcoin software to determine when a particular bitcoin was spent, which is needed to prevent double-spending. A conventional ledger records the transfers of actual bills or promissory notes that exist apart from it, but as a digital ledger, bitcoins only exist by virtue of the blockchain; they are represented by the unspent outputs of transactions.[7]: ch. 5 

Individual blocks, public addresses, and transactions within blocks can be examined using a blockchain explorer.[35]

Transactions

Transactions are defined using a Forth-like scripting language.[7]: ch. 5  Transactions consist of one or more inputs and one or more outputs. When a user sends bitcoins, the user designates each address and the amount of bitcoin being sent to that address in an output. To prevent double spending, each input must refer to a previous unspent output in the blockchain.[36] The use of multiple inputs corresponds to the use of multiple coins in a cash transaction. Since transactions can have multiple outputs, users can send bitcoins to multiple recipients in one transaction. As in a cash transaction, the sum of inputs (coins used to pay) can exceed the intended sum of payments. In such a case, an additional output is used, returning the change back to the payer.[36] Any input satoshis not accounted for in the transaction outputs become the transaction fee.[36]

Though transaction fees are optional, miners can choose which transactions to process and prioritize those that pay higher fees.[36] Miners may choose transactions based on the fee paid relative to their storage size, not the absolute amount of money paid as a fee. These fees are generally measured in satoshis per byte (sat/b). The size of transactions is dependent on the number of inputs used to create the transaction and the number of outputs.[7]: ch. 8 

The blocks in the blockchain were originally limited to 32 megabytes in size. The block size limit of one megabyte was introduced by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2010.[clarification needed] Eventually, the block size limit of one megabyte created problems for transaction processing, such as increasing transaction fees and delayed processing of transactions.[37] Andreas Antonopoulos has stated Lightning Network is a potential scaling solution and referred to lightning as a second-layer routing network.[7]: ch. 8 

Ownership

Simplified chain of ownership as illustrated in the bitcoin whitepaper.[3] In practice, a transaction can have more than one input and more than one output.[36]

In the blockchain, bitcoins are registered to bitcoin addresses. Creating a bitcoin address requires nothing more than picking a random valid private key and computing the corresponding bitcoin address. This computation can be done in a split second. But the reverse, computing the private key of a given bitcoin address, is practically unfeasible.[7]: ch. 4  Users can tell others or make public a bitcoin address without compromising its corresponding private key. Moreover, the number of valid private keys is so vast that it is extremely unlikely someone will compute a key pair that is already in use and has funds. The vast number of valid private keys makes it unfeasible that brute force could be used to compromise a private key. To be able to spend their bitcoins, the owner must know the corresponding private key and digitally sign the transaction.[d] The network verifies the signature using the public key; the private key is never revealed.[7]: ch. 5 

If the private key is lost, the bitcoin network will not recognize any other evidence of ownership;[33] the coins are then unusable, and effectively lost. For example, in 2013 one user claimed to have lost ₿7,500, worth $7.5 million at the time, when he accidentally discarded a hard drive containing his private key.[40] About 20% of all bitcoins are believed to be lost—they would have had a market value of about $20 billion at July 2018 prices.[41]

To ensure the security of bitcoins, the private key must be kept secret.[7]: ch. 10  If the private key is revealed to a third party, e.g. through a data breach, the third party can use it to steal any associated bitcoins.[42] As of December 2017, around ₿980,000 have been stolen from cryptocurrency exchanges.[43]

Regarding ownership distribution, as of 28 December 2022, 9.62% of bitcoin addresses own 98.51% of all bitcoins ever mined.[44] The largest of these addresses are thought to belong to exchanges, which are keeping their bitcoin in cold storage.[45]

Mining

Later amateurs mined bitcoins with specialized FPGA and ASIC chips. The chips pictured have become obsolete due to increasing difficulty.

Today, bitcoin mining companies dedicate facilities to housing and operating large amounts of high-performance mining hardware.[47]

Mining is a record-keeping service done through the use of computer processing power.[f] Miners keep the blockchain consistent, complete, and unalterable by repeatedly grouping newly broadcast transactions into a block, which is then broadcast to the network and verified by recipient nodes.[32] Each block contains a SHA-256 cryptographic hash of the previous block,[32] thus linking it to the previous block and giving the blockchain its name.[7]: ch. 7 [32]

To be accepted by the rest of the network, a new block must contain a proof-of-work (PoW).[32][g] The PoW requires miners to find a number called a nonce (a number used just once), such that when the block content is hashed along with the nonce, the result is numerically smaller than the network’s difficulty target.[7]: ch. 8  This PoW is easy for any node in the network to verify, but extremely time-consuming to generate. Miners must try many different nonce values (usually the sequence of tested values is the ascending natural numbers: 0, 1, 2, 3, …) before a result happens to be less than the difficulty target. Because the difficulty target is extremely small compared to a typical SHA-256 hash, block hashes have many leading zeros[7]: ch. 8  as can be seen in this example block hash:

0000000000000000000590fc0f3eba193a278534220b2b37e9849e1a770ca959

By adjusting this difficulty target, the amount of work needed to generate a block can be changed. Every 2,016 blocks (approximately 14 days given roughly 10 minutes per block), nodes deterministically adjust the difficulty target based on the recent rate of block generation, with the aim of keeping the average time between new blocks at ten minutes. In this way the system automatically adapts to the total amount of mining power on the network.[7]: ch. 8  As of April 2022, it takes on average 122 sextillion (122 thousand billion billion) attempts to generate a block hash smaller than the difficulty target.[51][better source needed] Computations of this magnitude are extremely expensive and utilize specialized hardware.[52]

The proof-of-work system, alongside the chaining of blocks, makes modifications to the blockchain extremely hard, as an attacker must modify all subsequent blocks in order for the modifications of one block to be accepted.[53] As new blocks are being generated continuously, the difficulty of modifying an old block increases as time passes and the number of subsequent blocks (also called confirmations of the given block) increases.[32]

The vast majority of mining power is grouped together in mining pools to reduce variance in miner income. Independent miners may have to work for several years to mine a single block of transactions and receive payment. In a mining pool, all participating miners get paid every time any participant generates a block. This payment is proportionate to the amount of work an individual miner contributed to the pool.[54][better source needed]

Supply

Every 10 minutes,[55] the successful miner finding the new block is allowed by the rest of the network to collect for themselves all transaction fees from transactions they included in the block, as well as a predetermined reward of newly created bitcoins.[56] As of 11 May 2020, this reward was ₿6.25 in newly created bitcoins per block.[57] To claim this reward, a special transaction called a coinbase is included in the block, with the miner as the payee.[7]: ch. 8  All bitcoins in existence have been created through this type of transaction. The bitcoin protocol specifies that the reward for adding a block will be reduced by half every 210,000 blocks (approximately every four years), until ₿21 million[h] are generated. Assuming the protocol is not changed and the 10 minute average block creation time remains constant, the last new bitcoin would be generated around the year 2140. After that, a successful miner would be rewarded by transaction fees only.[58]

Decentralization

Bitcoin is decentralized thus:[5]

  • Bitcoin does not have a central authority.[5]
  • The bitcoin network is peer-to-peer,[12] without central servers.
  • The network also has no central storage; the bitcoin ledger is distributed.[59]
  • The ledger is public; anybody can store it on a computer.[7]: ch. 1 
  • There is no single administrator;[5] the ledger is maintained by a network of equally privileged miners.[7]: ch. 1 
  • Anyone can become a miner.[7]: ch. 1 
  • The additions to the ledger are maintained through competition. Until a new block is added to the ledger, it is not known which miner will create the block.[7]: ch. 1 
  • The issuance of bitcoins is decentralized. They are issued as a reward for the creation of a new block.[56]
  • Anybody can create a new bitcoin address (a bitcoin counterpart of a bank account) without needing any approval.[7]: ch. 1 
  • Anybody can send a transaction to the network without needing any approval; the network merely confirms that the transaction is legitimate.[60]: 32 

Conversely, researchers[who?] have pointed out a «trend towards centralization»[citation needed]. Although bitcoin can be sent directly from user to user, in practice intermediaries are widely used.[33]: 220–222  Bitcoin miners join large mining pools to minimize the variance of their income.[33]: 215, 219–222 [61]: 3 [62] Because transactions on the network are confirmed by miners, decentralization of the network requires that no single miner or mining pool obtains 51% of the hashing power, which would allow them to double-spend coins, prevent certain transactions from being verified and prevent other miners from earning income.[63] As of 2013 just six mining pools controlled 75% of overall bitcoin hashing power.[63] In 2014 mining pool Ghash.io obtained 51% hashing power which raised significant controversies about the safety of the network. The pool has voluntarily capped its hashing power at 39.99% and requested other pools to act responsibly for the benefit of the whole network.[64] Around the year 2017, over 70% of the hashing power and 90% of transactions were operating from China.[65]

According to researchers, other parts of the ecosystem are also «controlled by a small set of entities», notably the maintenance of the client software, online wallets, and simplified payment verification (SPV) clients.[63]

Privacy and fungibility

Bitcoin is pseudonymous, meaning that funds are not tied to real-world entities but rather bitcoin addresses. Owners of bitcoin addresses are not explicitly identified, but all transactions on the blockchain are public. In addition, transactions can be linked to individuals and companies through «idioms of use» (e.g., transactions that spend coins from multiple inputs indicate that the inputs may have a common owner) and corroborating public transaction data with known information on owners of certain addresses.[66] Additionally, bitcoin exchanges, where bitcoins are traded for traditional currencies, may be required by law to collect personal information.[67] To heighten financial privacy, a new bitcoin address can be generated for each transaction.[68]

While the Bitcoin network treats each bitcoin the same, thus establishing the basic level of fungibility, applications and individuals who use the network are free to break that principle. For instance, wallets and similar software technically handle all bitcoins equally, none is different from another. Still, the history of each bitcoin is registered and publicly available in the blockchain ledger, and that can allow users of chain analysis to refuse to accept bitcoins coming from controversial transactions.[69] For example, in 2012, Mt. Gox froze accounts of users who deposited bitcoins that were known to have just been stolen.[70]

Wallets

Bitcoin Core, a full client

Electrum, a lightweight client

A wallet stores the information necessary to transact bitcoins. While wallets are often described as a place to hold[71] or store bitcoins, due to the nature of the system, bitcoins are inseparable from the blockchain transaction ledger. A wallet is more correctly defined as something that «stores the digital credentials for your bitcoin holdings» and allows one to access (and spend) them. [7]: ch. 1, glossary  Bitcoin uses public-key cryptography, in which two cryptographic keys, one public and one private, are generated.[72] At its most basic, a wallet is a collection of these keys.

Software wallets

The first wallet program, simply named Bitcoin, and sometimes referred to as the Satoshi client, was released in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto as open-source software.[12] In version 0.5 the client moved from the wxWidgets user interface toolkit to Qt, and the whole bundle was referred to as Bitcoin-Qt.[73] After the release of version 0.9, the software bundle was renamed Bitcoin Core to distinguish itself from the underlying network.[74][75] Bitcoin Core is, perhaps, the best known implementation or client. Alternative clients (forks of Bitcoin Core) exist, such as Bitcoin XT, Bitcoin Unlimited,[76] and Parity Bitcoin.[77]

There are several modes in which wallets can operate in. They have an inverse relationship with regard to trustlessness and computational requirements.

  • Full clients verify transactions directly by downloading a full copy of the blockchain (over 150 GB as of January 2018).[citation needed] They do not require trust in any external parties. Full clients check the validity of mined blocks, preventing them from transacting on a chain that breaks or alters network rules.[7]: ch. 1  Because of its size and complexity, downloading and verifying the entire blockchain is not suitable for all computing devices.
  • Lightweight clients consult full nodes to send and receive transactions without requiring a local copy of the entire blockchain (see simplified payment verification – SPV). This makes lightweight clients much faster to set up and allows them to be used on low-power, low-bandwidth devices such as smartphones. When using a lightweight wallet, however, the user must trust full nodes, as it can report faulty values back to the user. Lightweight clients follow the longest blockchain and do not ensure it is valid, requiring trust in full nodes.[78]

Third-party internet services called online wallets or webwallets offer similar functionality but may be easier to use. In this case, credentials to access funds are stored with the online wallet provider rather than on the user’s hardware.[79] As a result, the user must have complete trust in the online wallet provider. A malicious provider or a breach in server security may cause entrusted bitcoins to be stolen. An example of such a security breach occurred with Mt. Gox in 2011.[80]

Cold storage

A paper wallet with the address visible for adding or checking stored funds. The part of the page containing the private key is folded over and sealed.

A hardware wallet peripheral which processes bitcoin payments without exposing any credentials to the computer

Wallet software is targeted by hackers because of the lucrative potential for stealing bitcoins.[42] A technique called «cold storage» keeps private keys out of reach of hackers; this is accomplished by keeping private keys offline at all times[81][7]: ch. 4  by generating them on a device that is not connected to the internet.[82]: 39  The credentials necessary to spend bitcoins can be stored offline in a number of different ways, from specialized hardware wallets to simple paper printouts of the private key.[7]: ch. 10 

Hardware wallets

A hardware wallet is a computer peripheral that signs transactions as requested by the user. These devices store private keys and carry out signing and encryption internally,[81] and do not share any sensitive information with the host computer except already signed (and thus unalterable) transactions.[83] Because hardware wallets never expose their private keys, even computers that may be compromised by malware do not have a vector to access or steal them.[82]: 42–45 

The user sets a passcode when setting up a hardware wallet.[81] As hardware wallets are tamper-resistant,[83][7]: ch. 10  the passcode will be needed to extract any money.[83]

Paper wallets

A paper wallet is created with a keypair generated on a computer with no internet connection; the private key is written or printed onto the paper[i] and then erased from the computer.[7]: ch. 4  The paper wallet can then be stored in a safe physical location for later retrieval.[82]: 39 

Physical wallets can also take the form of metal token coins[84] with a private key accessible under a security hologram in a recess struck on the reverse side.[85]: 38  The security hologram self-destructs when removed from the token, showing that the private key has been accessed.[86] Originally, these tokens were struck in brass and other base metals, but later used precious metals as bitcoin grew in value and popularity.[85]: 80  Coins with stored face value as high as ₿1,000 have been struck in gold.[85]: 102–104  The British Museum’s coin collection includes four specimens from the earliest series[85]: 83  of funded bitcoin tokens; one is currently on display in the museum’s money gallery.[87] In 2013, a Utah manufacturer of these tokens was ordered by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to register as a money services business before producing any more funded bitcoin tokens.[84][85]: 80 

History

Creation

External images
image icon Cover page of The Times 3 January 2009 showing the headline used in the genesis block
image icon Infamous photo of the two pizzas purchased by Laszlo Hanyecz for ₿10,000

The domain name bitcoin.org was registered on 18 August 2008.[88] On 31 October 2008, a link to a paper authored by Satoshi Nakamoto titled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System[3] was posted to a cryptography mailing list.[89] Nakamoto implemented the bitcoin software as open-source code and released it in January 2009.[90][91][12] Nakamoto’s identity remains unknown.[11]

No uniform convention for bitcoin capitalization exists; some sources use Bitcoin, capitalized, to refer to the technology and network and bitcoin, lowercase, for the unit of account.[92] The Wall Street Journal,[93] The Chronicle of Higher Education,[94] and the Oxford English Dictionary[14] advocate the use of lowercase bitcoin in all cases.

On 3 January 2009, the bitcoin network was created when Nakamoto mined the starting block of the chain, known as the genesis block.[95][96] Embedded in the coinbase of this block was the text «The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks».[12] This note references a headline published by The Times and has been interpreted as both a timestamp and a comment on the instability caused by fractional-reserve banking.[97]: 18 

The receiver of the first bitcoin transaction was Hal Finney, who had created the first reusable proof-of-work system (RPoW) in 2004.[98] Finney downloaded the bitcoin software on its release date, and on 12 January 2009 received ten bitcoins from Nakamoto.[99][100] Other early cypherpunk supporters were creators of bitcoin predecessors: Wei Dai, creator of b-money, and Nick Szabo, creator of bit gold.[95] In 2010, the first known commercial transaction using bitcoin occurred when programmer Laszlo Hanyecz bought two Papa John’s pizzas for ₿10,000 from Jeremy Sturdivant.[101][103][104][105]

Blockchain analysts estimate that Nakamoto had mined about one million bitcoins[106] before disappearing in 2010 when he handed the network alert key and control of the code repository over to Gavin Andresen. Andresen later became lead developer at the Bitcoin Foundation.[107][108] Andresen then sought to decentralize control. This left opportunity for controversy to develop over the future development path of bitcoin, in contrast to the perceived authority of Nakamoto’s contributions.[76][108]

2011–2012

After early «proof-of-concept» transactions, the first major users of bitcoin were black markets, such as Silk Road. During its 30 months of existence, beginning in February 2011, Silk Road exclusively accepted bitcoins as payment, transacting ₿9.9 million, worth about $214 million.[33]: 222 

In 2011, the price started at $0.30 per bitcoin, growing to $5.27 for the year. The price rose to $31.50 on 8 June. Within a month, the price fell to $11.00. The next month it fell to $7.80, and in another month to $4.77.[109]

In 2012, bitcoin prices started at $5.27, growing to $13.30 for the year.[109] By 9 January the price had risen to $7.38, but then crashed by 49% to $3.80 over the next 16 days. The price then rose to $16.41 on 17 August, but fell by 57% to $7.10 over the next three days.[110]

The Bitcoin Foundation was founded in September 2012 to promote bitcoin’s development and uptake.[111]

On 1 November 2011, the reference implementation Bitcoin-Qt version 0.5.0 was released. It introduced a front end that used the Qt user interface toolkit.[112] The software previously used Berkeley DB for database management. Developers switched to LevelDB in release 0.8 in order to reduce blockchain synchronization time.[citation needed] The update to this release resulted in a minor blockchain fork on 11 March 2013. The fork was resolved shortly afterwards.[citation needed] Seeding nodes through IRC was discontinued in version 0.8.2. From version 0.9.0 the software was renamed to Bitcoin Core. Transaction fees were reduced again by a factor of ten as a means to encourage microtransactions.[citation needed] Although Bitcoin Core does not use OpenSSL for the operation of the network, the software did use OpenSSL for remote procedure calls. Version 0.9.1 was released to remove the network’s vulnerability to the Heartbleed bug.[citation needed]

2013–2016

In 2013, prices started at $13.30 rising to $770 by 1 January 2014.[109]

In March 2013 the blockchain temporarily split into two independent chains with different rules due to a bug in version 0.8 of the bitcoin software. The two blockchains operated simultaneously for six hours, each with its own version of the transaction history from the moment of the split. Normal operation was restored when the majority of the network downgraded to version 0.7 of the bitcoin software, selecting the backwards-compatible version of the blockchain. As a result, this blockchain became the longest chain and could be accepted by all participants, regardless of their bitcoin software version.[113] During the split, the Mt. Gox exchange briefly halted bitcoin deposits and the price dropped by 23% to $37[113][114] before recovering to the previous level of approximately $48 in the following hours.[115]

The US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) established regulatory guidelines for «decentralized virtual currencies» such as bitcoin, classifying American bitcoin miners who sell their generated bitcoins as Money Service Businesses (MSBs), that are subject to registration or other legal obligations.[116][118]

In April, exchanges BitInstant and Mt. Gox experienced processing delays due to insufficient capacity[119] resulting in the bitcoin price dropping from $266 to $76 before returning to $160 within six hours.[120] The bitcoin price rose to $259 on 10 April, but then crashed by 83% to $45 over the next three days.[110]

On 15 May 2013, US authorities seized accounts associated with Mt. Gox after discovering it had not registered as a money transmitter with FinCEN in the US.[121][122] On 23 June 2013, the US Drug Enforcement Administration listed ₿11.02 as a seized asset in a United States Department of Justice seizure notice pursuant to 21 U.S.C. § 881. This marked the first time a government agency had seized bitcoin.[123] The FBI seized about ₿30,000[124] in October 2013 from the dark web website Silk Road, following the arrest of Ross William Ulbricht.[125][126][127] These bitcoins were sold at blind auction by the United States Marshals Service to venture capital investor Tim Draper.[124] Bitcoin’s price rose to $755 on 19 November and crashed by 50% to $378 the same day. On 30 November 2013, the price reached $1,163 before starting a long-term crash, declining by 87% to $152 in January 2015.[110]

On 5 December 2013, the People’s Bank of China prohibited Chinese financial institutions from using bitcoin.[128] After the announcement, the value of bitcoin dropped,[129] and Baidu no longer accepted bitcoins for certain services.[130] Buying real-world goods with any virtual currency had been illegal in China since at least 2009.[131]

In 2014, prices started at $770 and fell to $314 for the year.[109] On 30 July 2014, the Wikimedia Foundation started accepting donations of bitcoin.[132]

In 2015, prices started at $314 and rose to $434 for the year. In 2016, prices rose and climbed up to $998 by 1 January 2017.[109]

Release 0.10 of the software was made public on 16 February 2015. It introduced a consensus library which gave programmers easy access to the rules governing consensus on the network. In version 0.11.2 developers added a new feature which allowed transactions to be made unspendable until a specific time in the future.[133]

In July 2016, the CheckSequenceVerify soft fork activated.[134] In August 2016, the Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange platform was hacked in the second-largest breach of a Bitcoin exchange platform up to that time, and ₿119,756,[135] worth about $72 million at the time, were stolen.[136]

In October 2016, Bitcoin Core’s 0.13.1 release featured the «Segwit» soft fork that included a scaling improvement aiming to optimize the bitcoin blocksize.[citation needed] The patch was originally finalized in April, and 35 developers were engaged to deploy it.[citation needed] This release featured Segregated Witness (SegWit) which aimed to place downward pressure on transaction fees as well as increase the maximum transaction capacity of the network.[137][non-primary source needed] The 0.13.1 release endured extensive testing and research leading to some delays in its release date.[citation needed] SegWit prevents various forms of transaction malleability.[138][non-primary source needed]

2017–2019

Research produced by the University of Cambridge estimated that in 2017, there were 2.9 to 5.8 million unique users using a cryptocurrency wallet, most of them using bitcoin.[139] On 15 July 2017, the controversial Segregated Witness [SegWit] software upgrade was approved («locked-in»). Segwit was intended to support the Lightning Network as well as improve scalability.[140] SegWit was subsequently activated on the network on 24 August 2017. The bitcoin price rose almost 50% in the week following SegWit’s approval.[140] On 21 July 2017, bitcoin was trading at $2,748, up 52% from 14 July 2017’s $1,835.[140] Supporters of large blocks who were dissatisfied with the activation of SegWit forked the software on 1 August 2017 to create Bitcoin Cash, becoming one of many forks of bitcoin such as Bitcoin Gold.[141]

Prices started at $998 in 2017 and rose to $13,412.44 on 1 January 2018,[109] after reaching its all-time high of $19,783.06 on 17 December 2017.[142]

China banned trading in bitcoin, with first steps taken in September 2017, and a complete ban that started on 1 February 2018. Bitcoin prices then fell from $9,052 to $6,914 on 5 February 2018.[110] The percentage of bitcoin trading in the Chinese renminbi fell from over 90% in September 2017 to less than 1% in June 2018.[143]

Throughout the rest of the first half of 2018, bitcoin’s price fluctuated between $11,480 and $5,848. On 1 July 2018, bitcoin’s price was $6,343.[144][145] The price on 1 January 2019 was $3,747, down 72% for 2018 and down 81% since the all-time high.[144][146]

In September 2018, an anonymous party discovered and reported an invalid-block denial-of-server vulnerability to developers of Bitcoin Core, Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin Unlimited. Further analysis by bitcoin developers showed the issue could also allow the creation of blocks violating the 21 million coin limit and CVE-2018-17144 was assigned and the issue resolved.[147][non-primary source needed]

Bitcoin prices were negatively affected by several hacks or thefts from cryptocurrency exchanges, including thefts from Coincheck in January 2018, Bithumb in June, and Bancor in July. For the first six months of 2018, $761 million worth of cryptocurrencies was reported stolen from exchanges.[148] Bitcoin’s price was affected even though other cryptocurrencies were stolen at Coinrail and Bancor as investors worried about the security of cryptocurrency exchanges.[149][150][151] In September 2019, the Intercontinental Exchange (the owner of the NYSE) began trading of bitcoin futures on its exchange called Bakkt.[152] Bakkt also announced that it would launch options on bitcoin in December 2019.[153] In December 2019, YouTube removed bitcoin and cryptocurrency videos, but later restored the content after judging they had «made the wrong call».[154]

In February 2019, Canadian cryptocurrency exchange Quadriga Fintech Solutions failed with approximately $200 million missing.[155] By June 2019 the price had recovered to $13,000.[156]

2020–present

Bitcoin price in US dollars

On 13 March 2020, bitcoin fell below $4,000 during a broad market selloff, after trading above $10,000 in February 2020.[157] On 11 March 2020, 281,000 bitcoins were sold, held by owners for only thirty days.[156] This compared to ₿4,131 that had laid dormant for a year or more, indicating that the vast majority of the bitcoin volatility on that day was from recent buyers. During the week of 11 March 2020, cryptocurrency exchange Kraken experienced an 83% increase in the number of account signups over the week of bitcoin’s price collapse, a result of buyers looking to capitalize on the low price.[156] These events were attributed to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In August 2020, MicroStrategy invested $250 million in bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset.[158] In October 2020, Square, Inc. placed approximately 1% of total assets ($50 million) in bitcoin.[159] In November 2020, PayPal announced that US users could buy, hold, or sell bitcoin.[160] On 30 November 2020, the bitcoin value reached a new all-time high of $19,860, topping the previous high of December 2017.[161] Alexander Vinnik, founder of BTC-e, was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for money laundering in France while refusing to testify during his trial.[162] In December 2020, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company announced a bitcoin purchase of US$100 million, or roughly 0.04% of its general investment account.[163]

On 19 January 2021, Elon Musk placed the handle #Bitcoin in his Twitter profile, tweeting «In retrospect, it was inevitable», which caused the price to briefly rise about $5,000 in an hour to $37,299.[164] On 25 January 2021, Microstrategy announced that it continued to buy bitcoin and as of the same date it had holdings of ₿70,784 worth $2.38 billion.[165] On 8 February 2021 Tesla’s announcement of a bitcoin purchase of US$1.5 billion and the plan to start accepting bitcoin as payment for vehicles, pushed the bitcoin price to $44,141.[166] On 18 February 2021, Elon Musk stated that «owning bitcoin was only a little better than holding conventional cash, but that the slight difference made it a better asset to hold».[167] After 49 days of accepting the digital currency, Tesla reversed course on 12 May 2021, saying they would no longer take bitcoin due to concerns that «mining» the cryptocurrency was contributing to the consumption of fossil fuels and climate change.[168] The decision resulted in the price of bitcoin dropping around 12% on 13 May.[169] During a July bitcoin conference, Musk suggested Tesla could possibly help bitcoin miners switch to renewable energy in the future and also stated at the same conference that if bitcoin mining reaches, and trends above 50 percent renewable energy usage, that «Tesla would resume accepting bitcoin.» The price for bitcoin rose after this announcement.[170]

In June 2021, the Taproot network software upgrade was approved, adding support for Schnorr signatures, improved functionality of Smart contracts and Lightning Network.[171] The upgrade was activated in November.[172]

In September 2021, Bitcoin in El Salvador became legal tender, alongside the US dollar.[173][8]

On 16 October 2021, the SEC approved the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF, a cash-settled futures exchange-traded fund (ETF). The first bitcoin ETF in the United States gained 5% on its first trading day on 19 October 2021.[174][175]

On 25 March 2022, Pavel Zavalny stated that Russia might accept bitcoin for payment for oil and gas exports, in response to sanctions stemming from the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[176]

On 27 April 2022 Central African Republic adopted bitcoin as legal tender alongside the CFA franc.[177][9]

On May 10, 2022, the bitcoin price fell to $31,324, as a result of a collapse of a UST stablecoin experiment named Terra, with bitcoin down more than 50% since the November 2021 high.[178] By June 13, 2022, the Celsius Network (a decentralized finance loan company) halted withdrawals and resulted in the bitcoin price falling below $20,000.[179][180]

In May 2022, following a vote by Wikipedia editors the previous month, the Wikimedia Foundation announced it would stop accepting donations in bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies—eight years after it had first started taking contributions in bitcoin.[181][182]

Associated ideologies

Satoshi Nakamoto stated in an essay accompanying bitcoin’s code that: «The root problem with conventional currencies is all the trust that’s required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust.»[183]

Austrian economics roots

According to the European Central Bank, the decentralization of money offered by bitcoin has its theoretical roots in the Austrian school of economics, especially with Friedrich von Hayek in his book Denationalisation of Money: The Argument Refined,[184] in which Hayek advocates a complete free market in the production, distribution and management of money to end the monopoly of central banks.[185]: 22 

Anarchism and libertarianism

According to The New York Times, libertarians and anarchists were attracted to the philosophical idea behind bitcoin. Early bitcoin supporter Roger Ver said: «At first, almost everyone who got involved did so for philosophical reasons. We saw bitcoin as a great idea, as a way to separate money from the state.»[183] The Economist describes bitcoin as «a techno-anarchist project to create an online version of cash, a way for people to transact without the possibility of interference from malicious governments or banks».[186] Economist Paul Krugman argues that cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are «something of a cult» based in «paranoid fantasies» of government power.[187]

External video
video icon The Declaration Of Bitcoin’s Independence, BraveTheWorld, 4:38[188]

Nigel Dodd argues in The Social Life of Bitcoin that the essence of the bitcoin ideology is to remove money from social, as well as governmental, control.[189] Dodd quotes a YouTube video, with Roger Ver, Jeff Berwick, Charlie Shrem, Andreas Antonopoulos, Gavin Wood, Trace Meyer and other proponents of bitcoin reading The Declaration of Bitcoin’s Independence. The declaration includes a message of crypto-anarchism with the words: «Bitcoin is inherently anti-establishment, anti-system, and anti-state. Bitcoin undermines governments and disrupts institutions because bitcoin is fundamentally humanitarian.»[189][188]

David Golumbia says that the ideas influencing bitcoin advocates emerge from right-wing extremist movements such as the Liberty Lobby and the John Birch Society and their anti-Central Bank rhetoric, or, more recently, Ron Paul and Tea Party-style libertarianism.[190] Steve Bannon, who owns a «good stake» in bitcoin, considers it to be «disruptive populism. It takes control back from central authorities. It’s revolutionary.»[191]

A 2014 study of Google Trends data found correlations between bitcoin-related searches and ones related to computer programming and illegal activity, but not libertarianism or investment topics.[192]

Economics

Bitcoin is a digital asset designed to work in peer-to-peer transactions as a currency.[3][193] Bitcoins have three qualities useful in a currency, according to The Economist in January 2015: they are «hard to earn, limited in supply and easy to verify».[194] Per some researchers, as of 2015, bitcoin functions more as a payment system than as a currency.[33]

Economists define money as serving the following three purposes: a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of account.[195] According to The Economist in 2014, bitcoin functions best as a medium of exchange.[195] However, this is debated, and a 2018 assessment by The Economist stated that cryptocurrencies met none of these three criteria.[186]
Yale economist Robert J. Shiller writes that bitcoin has potential as a unit of account for measuring the relative value of goods, as with Chile’s Unidad de Fomento, but that «Bitcoin in its present form … doesn’t really solve any sensible economic problem».[196]

According to research by the University of Cambridge, between 2.9 million and 5.8 million unique users used a cryptocurrency wallet in 2017, most of them for bitcoin. The number of users has grown significantly since 2013, when there were 300,000–1.3 million users.[139]

Acceptance by merchants

Dish Network, a Fortune 500 subscription TV provider, has been described as the first large company to accept bitcoin, in 2014.[197]

Bloomberg reported that the largest 17 crypto merchant-processing services handled $69 million in June 2018, down from $411 million in September 2017. Bitcoin is «not actually usable» for retail transactions because of high costs and the inability to process chargebacks, according to Nicholas Weaver, a researcher quoted by Bloomberg. High price volatility and transaction fees make paying for small retail purchases with bitcoin impractical, according to economist Kim Grauer. However, bitcoin continues to be used for large-item purchases on sites such as Overstock.com, and for cross-border payments to freelancers and other vendors.[198]

In 2017 and 2018, bitcoin’s acceptance among major online retailers included only three of the top 500 U.S. online merchants, down from five in 2016.[199] Reasons for this decline include high transaction fees due to bitcoin’s scalability issues and long transaction times.[200]

As of 2018, the overwhelming majority of bitcoin transactions took place on cryptocurrency exchanges, rather than being used in transactions with merchants.[199] Delays processing payments through the blockchain of about ten minutes make bitcoin use very difficult in a retail setting. Prices are not usually quoted in units of bitcoin and many trades involve one, or sometimes two, conversions into conventional currencies.[33] Merchants that do accept bitcoin payments may use payment service providers to perform the conversions.[201]

Financial institutions

Bitcoins can be bought on digital currency exchanges.

Per researchers, «there is little sign of bitcoin use» in international remittances despite high fees charged by banks and Western Union who compete in this market.[33] The South China Morning Post, however, mentions the use of bitcoin by Hong Kong workers to transfer money home.[202]

In 2014, the National Australia Bank closed accounts of businesses with ties to bitcoin,[203] and HSBC refused to serve a hedge fund with links to bitcoin.[204] Australian banks in general have been reported as closing down bank accounts of operators of businesses involving the currency.[205]

On 10 December 2017, the Chicago Board Options Exchange started trading bitcoin futures,[206] followed by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which started trading bitcoin futures on 17 December 2017.[207]

In September 2019 the Central Bank of Venezuela, at the request of PDVSA, ran tests to determine if bitcoin and ether could be held in central bank’s reserves. The request was motivated by oil company’s goal to pay its suppliers.[208]

François R. Velde, Senior Economist at the Chicago Fed, described bitcoin as «an elegant solution to the problem of creating a digital currency».[209] David Andolfatto, Vice President at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, stated that bitcoin is a threat to the establishment, which he argues is a good thing for the Federal Reserve System and other central banks, because it prompts these institutions to operate sound policies.[49]: 33 [210][211]

As an investment

The Winklevoss twins have purchased bitcoin. In 2013, The Washington Post reported a claim that they owned 1% of all the bitcoins in existence at the time.[212]

Other methods of investment are bitcoin funds. The first regulated bitcoin fund was established in Jersey in July 2014 and approved by the Jersey Financial Services Commission.[213]

Forbes named bitcoin the best investment of 2013.[214] In 2014, Bloomberg named bitcoin one of its worst investments of the year.[215] In 2015, bitcoin topped Bloomberg’s currency tables.[216]

According to bitinfocharts.com, in 2017, there were 9,272 bitcoin wallets with more than $1 million worth of bitcoins.[217] The exact number of bitcoin millionaires is uncertain as a single person can have more than one bitcoin wallet.

Venture capital

Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund invested US$3 million in BitPay.[218] In 2012, an incubator for bitcoin-focused start-ups was founded by Adam Draper, with financing help from his father, venture capitalist Tim Draper, one of the largest bitcoin holders after winning an auction of ₿30,000,[219] at the time called «mystery buyer».[220] The company’s goal is to fund 100 bitcoin businesses within 2–3 years with $10,000 to $20,000 for a 6% stake.[219] Investors also invest in bitcoin mining.[221] According to a 2015 study by Paolo Tasca, bitcoin startups raised almost $1 billion in three years (Q1 2012 – Q1 2015).[222]

Price and volatility

The price of bitcoins has gone through cycles of appreciation and depreciation referred to by some as bubbles and busts.[223] In 2011, the value of one bitcoin rapidly rose from about US$0.30 to US$32 before returning to US$2.[224] In the latter half of 2012 and during the 2012–13 Cypriot financial crisis, the bitcoin price began to rise,[225] reaching a high of US$266 on 10 April 2013, before crashing to around US$50. On 29 November 2013, the cost of one bitcoin rose to a peak of US$1,242.[226] In 2014, the price fell sharply, and as of April remained depressed at little more than half 2013 prices. As of August 2014 it was under US$600.[227]

According to Mark T. Williams, as of 30 September 2014, bitcoin has volatility seven times greater than gold, eight times greater than the S&P 500, and 18 times greater than the US dollar.[228] Hodl is a meme created in reference to holding (as opposed to selling) during periods of volatility. Unusual for an asset, bitcoin weekend trading during December 2020 was higher than for weekdays.[229] Hedge funds (using high leverage and derivates)[230] have attempted to use the volatility to profit from downward price movements. At the end of January 2021, such positions were over $1 billion, their highest of all time.[231]
As of 8 February 2021, the closing price of bitcoin equaled US$44,797.[232]

Legal status, tax and regulation

The legal status of bitcoin varies substantially from country to country and is still undefined or changing in many of them. Regulations and bans that apply to bitcoin probably extend to similar cryptocurrency systems.[222] Because of its decentralized nature and its trading on online exchanges located in many countries, regulation of bitcoin has been difficult. However, the use of bitcoin can be criminalized, and shutting down exchanges and the peer-to-peer economy in a given country would constitute a de facto ban.[233]

According to the Library of Congress, an «absolute ban» on trading or using cryptocurrencies applies in nine countries: Algeria, Bolivia, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, Nepal, Pakistan, Vietnam, and the United Arab Emirates. An «implicit ban» applies in another 42 countries, which include Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Kuwait, Lesotho, Lithuania, Macau, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Taiwan.[234] On 22 October 2015, the European Court of Justice ruled that bitcoin transactions would be exempt from Value Added Tax.[235]

Regulatory warnings

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has issued four «Customer Advisories» for bitcoin and related investments.[236] A July 2018 warning emphasized that trading in any cryptocurrency is often speculative, and there is a risk of theft from hacking, and fraud.[237] In May 2014 the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission warned that investments involving bitcoin might have high rates of fraud, and that investors might be solicited on social media sites.[238] An earlier «Investor Alert» warned about the use of bitcoin in Ponzi schemes.[239]

The European Banking Authority issued a warning in 2013 focusing on the lack of regulation of bitcoin, the chance that exchanges would be hacked, the volatility of bitcoin’s price, and general fraud.[240] FINRA and the North American Securities Administrators Association have both issued investor alerts about bitcoin.[241][242]

Price manipulation investigation

An official investigation into bitcoin traders was reported in May 2018.[243] The U.S. Justice Department launched an investigation into possible price manipulation, including the techniques of spoofing and wash trades.[244][245][246]

The U.S. federal investigation was prompted by concerns of possible manipulation during futures settlement dates. The final settlement price of CME bitcoin futures is determined by prices on four exchanges, Bitstamp, Coinbase, itBit and Kraken. Following the first delivery date in January 2018, the CME requested extensive detailed trading information but several of the exchanges refused to provide it and later provided only limited data. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission then subpoenaed the data from the exchanges.[247][248]

State and provincial securities regulators, coordinated through the North American Securities Administrators Association, are investigating «bitcoin scams» and ICOs in 40 jurisdictions.[249]

Academic research published in the Journal of Monetary Economics concluded that price manipulation occurred during the Mt Gox bitcoin theft and that the market remains vulnerable to manipulation.[250] The history of hacks, fraud and theft involving bitcoin dates back to at least 2011.[251]

Research by John M. Griffin and Amin Shams in 2018 suggests that trading associated with increases in the amount of the Tether cryptocurrency and associated trading at the Bitfinex exchange account for about half of the price increase in bitcoin in late 2017.[252][253]

J.L. van der Velde, CEO of both Bitfinex and Tether, denied the claims of price manipulation: «Bitfinex nor Tether is, or has ever, engaged in any sort of market or price manipulation. Tether issuances cannot be used to prop up the price of bitcoin or any other coin/token on Bitfinex.»[254]

Use by governments

In June 2021, the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador voted legislation to make bitcoin legal tender in El Salvador, alongside the US dollar.[j][262][258][263] The law took effect on 7 September, making El Salvador the first country to do so.[264][265][8] The implementation of the law has been met with protests[266] and calls to make the currency optional, not compulsory.[267] According to a survey by the Central American University, the majority of Salvadorans disagreed with using cryptocurrency as a legal tender,[268][269] and a survey by the Center for Citizen Studies (CEC) showed that 91% of the country prefers the dollar over bitcoin.[270] As of October 2021, the country’s government was exploring mining bitcoin with geothermal power and issuing bonds tied to bitcoin.[271] According to a survey done by the Central American University 100 days after the Bitcoin Law came into force: 34.8% of the population has no confidence in bitcoin, 35.3% has little confidence, 13.2% has some confidence, and 14.1% has a lot of confidence. 56.6% of respondents have downloaded the government bitcoin wallet; among them 62.9% has never used it or only once whereas 36.3% uses bitcoin at least once a month.[272][273] In 2022, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) urged El Salvador to reverse its decision after bitcoin lost half its value in two months. The IMF also warned that it would be difficult to get a loan from the institution.[274] According to one report in 2022, 80% of businesses refused to accept bitcoin despite being legally required to.[275]

In April 2022, the Central African Republic (CAR) adopted Bitcoin as legal tender alongside the CFA franc. After El Salvador, CAR is the second country to do so.[177][9]

Ukraine is accepting donations in cryptocurrency, including bitcoin, to fund the resistance against the Russian invasion.[276][277][278][279][280] According to the officials, 40% of the Ukraine’s military suppliers are willing to accept cryptocurrencies without converting them into euros or dollars.[281] In March 2022, Ukraine has passed a law that creates a legal framework for the cryptocurrency industry in the country,[282] including judicial protection of the right to own virtual assets.[283] In the same month, a cryptocurrency exchange was integrated into the Ukrainian e-governance service Diia.[284]

Iran announced pending regulations that would require bitcoin miners in Iran to sell bitcoin to the Central Bank of Iran, and the central bank would use it for imports.[285] Iran, as of October 2020, had issued over 1,000 bitcoin mining licenses.[285] The Iranian government initially took a stance against cryptocurrency, but later changed it after seeing that digital currency could be used to circumvent sanctions.[286] The US Office of Foreign Assets Control listed two Iranians and their bitcoin addresses as part of its Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List for their role in the 2018 Atlanta cyberattack whose ransom was paid in bitcoin.[287]

Some constituent states accept tax payments in bitcoin, including Colorado (US)[288] and Zug (Switzerland).[289][290]

Economic and legal concerns

Bitcoin, along with other cryptocurrencies, has been described as an economic bubble by at least eight Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences laureates, including Robert Shiller,[196] Joseph Stiglitz,[291] and Richard Thaler.[292][16] Economist and columnist Paul Krugman has described bitcoin as «a bubble wrapped in techno-mysticism inside a cocoon of libertarian ideology»,[187] economist Nouriel Roubini of New York University has called bitcoin the «mother of all bubbles»,[293] and University of Chicago economist James Heckman has compared it to the 17th-century tulip mania.[16]

Journalists, economists, investors, and the central bank of Estonia have voiced concerns that bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme.[294][295][296][297] Eric Posner, a law professor at the University of Chicago, states that «a real Ponzi scheme takes fraud; bitcoin, by contrast, seems more like a collective delusion.»[298] A 2014 report by the World Bank concluded that bitcoin was not a deliberate Ponzi scheme.[299]: 7  Also in 2014, the Swiss Federal Council examined concerns that bitcoin might be a pyramid scheme, and concluded that «since in the case of bitcoin the typical promises of profits are lacking, it cannot be assumed that bitcoin is a pyramid scheme.»[300]: 21 

Bitcoin wealth is highly concentrated, with 0.01% holding 27% of in-circulation currency, as of 2021.[301]

Use in illegal transactions

The use of bitcoin by criminals has attracted the attention of financial regulators, legislative bodies, law enforcement, and the media.[302]

Several news outlets have asserted that the popularity of bitcoins hinges on the ability to use them to purchase illegal goods.[193][303] Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says that bitcoin’s anonymity encourages money laundering and other crimes.[304][305]

Environmental effects

The environmental effects of Bitcoin are considerable. One such environmental effect is that it worsens climate change.[306] This is because bitcoins are made using electricity partially generated by gas and coal-fired power plants. When burned, coal and natural gas emit greenhouse gases, which heat the Earth and change the climate.[307] As of 2022, such bitcoin mining is estimated to be responsible for 0.1% of world greenhouse gas emissions.[308] A second environmental effect is the air pollution caused by coal-fired electricity generation, and a third is the e-waste due to the short life expectancy of bitcoin-mining equipment.[306]

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency made by proof-of-work,[307][309] while some other cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum, are made by proof-of-stake,[310] which consumes less electricity.[311][312] As of 2022, the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) estimates that Bitcoin consumes around 100 TW⋅h (360 PJ) annually, and says bitcoin mining uses about as much electricity as Egypt.[313][314] But it is difficult to find out how the electricity used for mining was generated, and thus Bitcoin’s carbon footprint.[315][316][317][318] One study found that from 2016 to 2021, each US dollar worth of bitcoin mined caused 35 cents worth of climate damage, comparable to the beef industry and the gasoline industry.[319][320][321]

As of 2021, Bitcoin’s annual e-waste is estimated to be over 30,000 tonnes, which is comparable to the small IT equipment waste produced by the Netherlands. Creating one bitcoin generates 270 to 380 grams (9.5 to 13.4 oz) of e-waste. The average lifespan of bitcoin-mining devices is estimated to be about 1.3 years.[322][323][324] Unlike most computing hardware, the used application-specific integrated circuits have no alternative use beyond bitcoin mining.[325]

Reducing Bitcoin’s environmental effects is difficult; possible remedies include making bitcoin only where or when there is excess clean electricity.[326][327] Some policymakers have called for further restrictions or bans on bitcoin mining.[328][329]

Software implementation

Bitcoin Core

Bitcoin-core-v0.10.0.png

The start screen under Fedora Linux
Original author(s) Satoshi Nakamoto
Initial release 2009
Stable release 24.0.1 (12 December 2022; 2 months ago) [±]
Repository github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
Written in C++
Operating system Linux, Windows, macOS
Type Cryptocurrency
License MIT License
Website bitcoincore.org

Bitcoin Core is free and open-source software that serves as a bitcoin node (the set of which form the bitcoin network) and provides a bitcoin wallet which fully verifies payments. It is considered to be bitcoin’s reference implementation.[330] Initially, the software was published by Satoshi Nakamoto under the name «Bitcoin», and later renamed to «Bitcoin Core» to distinguish it from the network.[331] It is also known as the Satoshi client.[332]

The MIT Digital Currency Initiative funds some of the development of Bitcoin Core.[333] The project also maintains the cryptography library libsecp256k1.[334]

Bitcoin Core includes a transaction verification engine and connects to the bitcoin network as a full node.[332] Moreover, a cryptocurrency wallet, which can be used to transfer funds, is included by default.[334] The wallet allows for the sending and receiving of bitcoins. It does not facilitate the buying or selling of bitcoin. It allows users to generate QR codes to receive payment.

The software validates the entire blockchain, which includes all bitcoin transactions ever. This distributed ledger which has reached more than 235 gigabytes in size as of Jan 2019, must be downloaded or synchronized before full participation of the client may occur.[332] Although the complete blockchain is not needed all at once since it is possible to run in pruning mode. A command line-based daemon with a JSON-RPC interface, bitcoind, is bundled with Bitcoin Core. It also provides access to testnet, a global testing environment that imitates the bitcoin main network using an alternative blockchain where valueless «test bitcoins» are used. Regtest or Regression Test Mode creates a private blockchain which is used as a local testing environment.[335] Finally, bitcoin-cli, a simple program which allows users to send RPC commands to bitcoind, is also included.

Checkpoints which have been hard coded into the client are used only to prevent Denial of Service attacks against nodes which are initially syncing the chain. For this reason the checkpoints included are only as of several years ago.[336][337][failed verification] A one megabyte block size limit was added in 2010 by Satoshi Nakamoto. This limited the maximum network capacity to about three transactions per second.[338] Since then, network capacity has been improved incrementally both through block size increases and improved wallet behavior. A network alert system was included by Satoshi Nakamoto as a way of informing users of important news regarding bitcoin.[339] In November 2016 it was retired. It had become obsolete as news on bitcoin is now widely disseminated.

Bitcoin Core includes a scripting language inspired by Forth that can define transactions and specify parameters.[340] ScriptPubKey is used to «lock» transactions based on a set of future conditions. scriptSig is used to meet these conditions or «unlock» a transaction. Operations on the data are performed by various OP_Codes. Two stacks are used – main and alt. Looping is forbidden.

Bitcoin Core uses OpenTimestamps to timestamp merge commits.[341]

The original creator of the bitcoin client has described their approach to the software’s authorship as it being written first to prove to themselves that the concept of purely peer-to-peer electronic cash was valid and that a paper with solutions could be written. The lead developer is Wladimir J. van der Laan, who took over the role on 8 April 2014.[342] Gavin Andresen was the former lead maintainer for the software client. Andresen left the role of lead developer for bitcoin to work on the strategic development of its technology.[342] Bitcoin Core in 2015 was central to a dispute with Bitcoin XT, a competing client that sought to increase the blocksize.[343] Over a dozen different companies and industry groups fund the development of Bitcoin Core.

In popular culture

Term «HODL»

Hodl ( HOD-əl; often written HODL) is slang in the cryptocurrency community for holding a cryptocurrency rather than selling it. A person who does this is known as a Hodler. It originated in a December 2013 post on the Bitcoin Forum message board by an apparently inebriated user who posted with a typo in the subject, «I AM HODLING.»[344] It is often humorously suggested to be a backronym to «hold on for dear life».[345] In 2017, Quartz listed it as one of the essential slang terms in bitcoin culture, and described it as a stance, «to stay invested in bitcoin and not to capitulate in the face of plunging prices.»[346] TheStreet.com referred to it as the «favorite mantra» of bitcoin holders.[347] Bloomberg News referred to it as a mantra for holders during market routs.[348]

Literature

In Charles Stross’ 2013 science fiction novel, Neptune’s Brood, the universal interstellar payment system is known as «bitcoin» and operates using cryptography.[349] Stross later blogged that the reference was intentional, saying «I wrote Neptune’s Brood in 2011. Bitcoin was obscure back then, and I figured had just enough name recognition to be a useful term for an interstellar currency: it’d clue people in that it was a networked digital currency.»[350]

Film

The 2014 documentary The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin portrays the diversity of motives behind the use of bitcoin by interviewing people who use it. These include a computer programmer and a drug dealer.[351] The 2016 documentary Banking on Bitcoin is an introduction to the beginnings of bitcoin and the ideas behind cryptocurrency today.[352]

Music

In 2018, a Japanese band called Kasotsuka Shojo – Virtual Currency Girls – launched. Each of the eight members represented a cryptocurrency, including bitcoin, Ethereum and Cardano.[353][354]

Academia

In September 2015, the establishment of the peer-reviewed academic journal Ledger (ISSN 2379-5980) was announced. It covers studies of cryptocurrencies and related technologies, and is published by the University of Pittsburgh.[355] The journal encourages authors to digitally sign a file hash of submitted papers, which will then be timestamped into the bitcoin blockchain. Authors are also asked to include a personal bitcoin address in the first page of their papers.[356][357]

See also

  • Alternative currency
  • Base58
  • Crypto-anarchism
  • List of bitcoin companies
  • List of bitcoin organizations
  • SHA-256 crypto currencies
  • Virtual currency law in the United States

Notes

  1. ^ a b As of 2014, BTC is a commonly used code. It does not conform to ISO 4217 as BT is the country code of Bhutan, and ISO 4217 requires the first letter used in global commodities to be ‘X’.
  2. ^ a b As of 2014, XBT, a code that conforms to ISO 4217 though is not officially part of it, is used by Bloomberg L.P.,[27] CNNMoney,[28] and xe.com.[29]
  3. ^ The genesis block is block number 0. The timestamp of the block is 2009-01-03 18:15:05. This block is unlike all other blocks in that it does not have a previous block to reference.
  4. ^ Bitcoin uses a custom elliptic curve called «secp256k1» with the ECDSA algorithm to produce signatures. The equation for this curve is y2=x3+7.[38] A proposed upgrade that would add support for Schnorr signatures is in development.[39]: 101 
  5. ^ Relative mining difficulty is defined as the ratio of the difficulty target on 9 January 2009 to the current difficulty target.
  6. ^ It is misleading to think that there is an analogy between gold mining and bitcoin mining. The fact is that gold miners are rewarded for producing gold, while bitcoin miners are not rewarded for producing bitcoins; they are rewarded for their record-keeping services.[49]
  7. ^ The system used is based on Adam Back’s 1997 anti-spam scheme, Hashcash.[50][failed verification][3]
  8. ^ The exact number is ₿20,999,999.9769.[7]: ch. 8 
  9. ^ The private key can be printed as a series of letters and numbers, a seed phrase, or a 2D barcode. Usually, the public key or bitcoin address is also printed, so that a holder of a paper wallet can check or add funds without exposing the private key to a device.
  10. ^ According to some reports, the law was approved on 8 June.[255][256][257] According to others, it was approved on 9 June.[258][173][259] The law was voted during the 8 June parliamentary session, and published in the official journal on 9 June.[260][261]

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External links

  • Media related to Bitcoin at Wikimedia Commons
  • Official website
  • Bitcoin at Curlie
Источник

«₿» redirects here. Not to be confused with «฿» for Thai baht.

Bitcoin

Prevailing bitcoin logo

Official logo of Bitcoin
Denominations
Plural Bitcoins
Symbol ₿
(Unicode: U+20BF ₿ BITCOIN SIGN)[a]
Code BTC,[b] XBT[c]
Precision 10−8
Subunits
 1⁄1000 Millibitcoin
 1⁄1000000 Microbitcoin
 1⁄100000000 Satoshi[2]
Development
Original author(s) Satoshi Nakamoto
White paper «Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System»[3]
Implementation(s) Bitcoin Core
Initial release 0.1.0 / 9 January 2009 (14 years ago)
Latest release 24.0.1 / 12 December 2022 (2 months ago)[4]
Code repository github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
Development status Active
Source model Free and open-source software
License MIT License
Ledger
Ledger start 3 January 2009 (14 years ago)
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[5]
Block reward ₿6.25[d]
Block time 10 minutes
Circulating supply ₿18,925,000[e]
Supply limit ₿21,000,000[6][f]
Valuation
Exchange rate Floating
Demographics
Official user(s)
  • El Salvador[8]
  • Central African Republic[9]
Website
Website bitcoin.org
  1. ^ Encoded Unicode version 10.0 (2017) in Currency Symbols block[1]
  2. ^ Very early software versions used the code «BC».
  3. ^ Compatible with ISO 4217.
  4. ^ May 2020 to approximately 2024, halved approximately every four years
  5. ^ As of 2022-01-10
  6. ^ The supply will approach, but never reach, ₿21 million. Issuance will permanently halt c. 2140 at ₿20,999,999.9769.[7]: ch. 8 

Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC[a] or XBT[b]; sign: ₿) is a protocol which implements a highly available, public, permanent, and decentralized ledger. In order to add to the ledger, a user must prove they control an entry in the ledger. The protocol specifies that the entry indicates an amount of a token, bitcoin with a minuscule b. The user can update the ledger, assigning some of their bitcoin to another entry in the ledger. Because the token has characteristics of money, it can be thought of as a digital currency.[10]

Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain. The cryptocurrency was invented in 2008 by an unknown person or group of people using the name Satoshi Nakamoto.[11] The currency began use in 2009,[12] when its implementation was released as open-source software.[7]: ch. 1 
The word «bitcoin» was defined in a white paper published on October 31, 2008.[3][13] It is a compound of the words bit and coin.[14]

The Library of Congress reports that, as of November 2021, nine countries have fully banned bitcoin use, while a further forty-two have implicitly banned it.[15] A few governments have used bitcoin in some capacity. El Salvador has adopted Bitcoin as legal tender, although use by merchants remains low. Ukraine has accepted cryptocurrency donations to fund the resistance to the 2022 Russian invasion. Iran has used bitcoin to bypass sanctions.

Bitcoin has been described as an economic bubble by at least eight recipients of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.[16]

The environmental effects of bitcoin are worth noting.[17] Its proof-of-work algorithm for bitcoin mining is designed to be computationally difficult, which requires the consumption of increasing quantities of electricity, the generation of which has contributed to climate change.[18][19] According to the University of Cambridge, bitcoin has emitted an estimated 200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide since its launch, [20] or about 0.04% of all carbon dioxide released since 2009.[21]

The UNESCO World Heritage Site, Virunga National Park, in eastern Congo, Africa pays for its operations, using a profitable Bitcoin mining operation powered by the Park’s hydroelectric plant.[22] Oil and gas giant Exxon mines Bitcoin using the natural gas flared by oil mining operations to generate their electricity.[23] Mining Bitcoin this way makes use of an otherwise «monumental waste of a valuable natural resource».[24] Still other miners reduce their overall energy bill by using the heat generated by their computers to heat their homes,[25] or hot tubs.[26]

Design

Units and divisibility

The unit of account of the bitcoin system is the bitcoin. Currency codes for representing bitcoin are BTC[a] and XBT.[b][30]: 2  Its Unicode character is ₿.[1] One bitcoin is divisible to eight decimal places.[7]: ch. 5  Units for smaller amounts of bitcoin are the millibitcoin (mBTC), equal to 1⁄1000 bitcoin, and the satoshi (sat), which is the smallest possible division, and named in homage to bitcoin’s creator, representing 1⁄100000000 (one hundred millionth) bitcoin.[2] 100,000 satoshis are one mBTC.[31]

Blockchain

Data structure of blocks in the ledger

The bitcoin blockchain is a public ledger that records bitcoin transactions.[32] It is implemented as a chain of blocks, each block containing a cryptographic hash of the previous block up to the genesis block[c] in the chain. A network of communicating nodes running bitcoin software maintains the blockchain.[33]: 215–219  Transactions of the form payer X sends Y bitcoins to payee Z are broadcast to this network using readily available software applications.

Network nodes can validate transactions, add them to their copy of the ledger, and then broadcast these ledger additions to other nodes. To achieve independent verification of the chain of ownership, each network node stores its own copy of the blockchain.[34] At varying intervals of time averaging to every 10 minutes, a new group of accepted transactions, called a block, is created, added to the blockchain, and quickly published to all nodes, without requiring central oversight. This allows bitcoin software to determine when a particular bitcoin was spent, which is needed to prevent double-spending. A conventional ledger records the transfers of actual bills or promissory notes that exist apart from it, but as a digital ledger, bitcoins only exist by virtue of the blockchain; they are represented by the unspent outputs of transactions.[7]: ch. 5 

Individual blocks, public addresses, and transactions within blocks can be examined using a blockchain explorer.[35]

Transactions

Transactions are defined using a Forth-like scripting language.[7]: ch. 5  Transactions consist of one or more inputs and one or more outputs. When a user sends bitcoins, the user designates each address and the amount of bitcoin being sent to that address in an output. To prevent double spending, each input must refer to a previous unspent output in the blockchain.[36] The use of multiple inputs corresponds to the use of multiple coins in a cash transaction. Since transactions can have multiple outputs, users can send bitcoins to multiple recipients in one transaction. As in a cash transaction, the sum of inputs (coins used to pay) can exceed the intended sum of payments. In such a case, an additional output is used, returning the change back to the payer.[36] Any input satoshis not accounted for in the transaction outputs become the transaction fee.[36]

Though transaction fees are optional, miners can choose which transactions to process and prioritize those that pay higher fees.[36] Miners may choose transactions based on the fee paid relative to their storage size, not the absolute amount of money paid as a fee. These fees are generally measured in satoshis per byte (sat/b). The size of transactions is dependent on the number of inputs used to create the transaction and the number of outputs.[7]: ch. 8 

The blocks in the blockchain were originally limited to 32 megabytes in size. The block size limit of one megabyte was introduced by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2010.[clarification needed] Eventually, the block size limit of one megabyte created problems for transaction processing, such as increasing transaction fees and delayed processing of transactions.[37] Andreas Antonopoulos has stated Lightning Network is a potential scaling solution and referred to lightning as a second-layer routing network.[7]: ch. 8 

Ownership

Simplified chain of ownership as illustrated in the bitcoin whitepaper.[3] In practice, a transaction can have more than one input and more than one output.[36]

In the blockchain, bitcoins are registered to bitcoin addresses. Creating a bitcoin address requires nothing more than picking a random valid private key and computing the corresponding bitcoin address. This computation can be done in a split second. But the reverse, computing the private key of a given bitcoin address, is practically unfeasible.[7]: ch. 4  Users can tell others or make public a bitcoin address without compromising its corresponding private key. Moreover, the number of valid private keys is so vast that it is extremely unlikely someone will compute a key pair that is already in use and has funds. The vast number of valid private keys makes it unfeasible that brute force could be used to compromise a private key. To be able to spend their bitcoins, the owner must know the corresponding private key and digitally sign the transaction.[d] The network verifies the signature using the public key; the private key is never revealed.[7]: ch. 5 

If the private key is lost, the bitcoin network will not recognize any other evidence of ownership;[33] the coins are then unusable, and effectively lost. For example, in 2013 one user claimed to have lost ₿7,500, worth $7.5 million at the time, when he accidentally discarded a hard drive containing his private key.[40] About 20% of all bitcoins are believed to be lost—they would have had a market value of about $20 billion at July 2018 prices.[41]

To ensure the security of bitcoins, the private key must be kept secret.[7]: ch. 10  If the private key is revealed to a third party, e.g. through a data breach, the third party can use it to steal any associated bitcoins.[42] As of December 2017, around ₿980,000 have been stolen from cryptocurrency exchanges.[43]

Regarding ownership distribution, as of 28 December 2022, 9.62% of bitcoin addresses own 98.51% of all bitcoins ever mined.[44] The largest of these addresses are thought to belong to exchanges, which are keeping their bitcoin in cold storage.[45]

Mining

Later amateurs mined bitcoins with specialized FPGA and ASIC chips. The chips pictured have become obsolete due to increasing difficulty.

Today, bitcoin mining companies dedicate facilities to housing and operating large amounts of high-performance mining hardware.[47]

Mining is a record-keeping service done through the use of computer processing power.[f] Miners keep the blockchain consistent, complete, and unalterable by repeatedly grouping newly broadcast transactions into a block, which is then broadcast to the network and verified by recipient nodes.[32] Each block contains a SHA-256 cryptographic hash of the previous block,[32] thus linking it to the previous block and giving the blockchain its name.[7]: ch. 7 [32]

To be accepted by the rest of the network, a new block must contain a proof-of-work (PoW).[32][g] The PoW requires miners to find a number called a nonce (a number used just once), such that when the block content is hashed along with the nonce, the result is numerically smaller than the network’s difficulty target.[7]: ch. 8  This PoW is easy for any node in the network to verify, but extremely time-consuming to generate. Miners must try many different nonce values (usually the sequence of tested values is the ascending natural numbers: 0, 1, 2, 3, …) before a result happens to be less than the difficulty target. Because the difficulty target is extremely small compared to a typical SHA-256 hash, block hashes have many leading zeros[7]: ch. 8  as can be seen in this example block hash:

0000000000000000000590fc0f3eba193a278534220b2b37e9849e1a770ca959

By adjusting this difficulty target, the amount of work needed to generate a block can be changed. Every 2,016 blocks (approximately 14 days given roughly 10 minutes per block), nodes deterministically adjust the difficulty target based on the recent rate of block generation, with the aim of keeping the average time between new blocks at ten minutes. In this way the system automatically adapts to the total amount of mining power on the network.[7]: ch. 8  As of April 2022, it takes on average 122 sextillion (122 thousand billion billion) attempts to generate a block hash smaller than the difficulty target.[51][better source needed] Computations of this magnitude are extremely expensive and utilize specialized hardware.[52]

The proof-of-work system, alongside the chaining of blocks, makes modifications to the blockchain extremely hard, as an attacker must modify all subsequent blocks in order for the modifications of one block to be accepted.[53] As new blocks are being generated continuously, the difficulty of modifying an old block increases as time passes and the number of subsequent blocks (also called confirmations of the given block) increases.[32]

The vast majority of mining power is grouped together in mining pools to reduce variance in miner income. Independent miners may have to work for several years to mine a single block of transactions and receive payment. In a mining pool, all participating miners get paid every time any participant generates a block. This payment is proportionate to the amount of work an individual miner contributed to the pool.[54][better source needed]

Supply

Every 10 minutes,[55] the successful miner finding the new block is allowed by the rest of the network to collect for themselves all transaction fees from transactions they included in the block, as well as a predetermined reward of newly created bitcoins.[56] As of 11 May 2020, this reward was ₿6.25 in newly created bitcoins per block.[57] To claim this reward, a special transaction called a coinbase is included in the block, with the miner as the payee.[7]: ch. 8  All bitcoins in existence have been created through this type of transaction. The bitcoin protocol specifies that the reward for adding a block will be reduced by half every 210,000 blocks (approximately every four years), until ₿21 million[h] are generated. Assuming the protocol is not changed and the 10 minute average block creation time remains constant, the last new bitcoin would be generated around the year 2140. After that, a successful miner would be rewarded by transaction fees only.[58]

Decentralization

Bitcoin is decentralized thus:[5]

  • Bitcoin does not have a central authority.[5]
  • The bitcoin network is peer-to-peer,[12] without central servers.
  • The network also has no central storage; the bitcoin ledger is distributed.[59]
  • The ledger is public; anybody can store it on a computer.[7]: ch. 1 
  • There is no single administrator;[5] the ledger is maintained by a network of equally privileged miners.[7]: ch. 1 
  • Anyone can become a miner.[7]: ch. 1 
  • The additions to the ledger are maintained through competition. Until a new block is added to the ledger, it is not known which miner will create the block.[7]: ch. 1 
  • The issuance of bitcoins is decentralized. They are issued as a reward for the creation of a new block.[56]
  • Anybody can create a new bitcoin address (a bitcoin counterpart of a bank account) without needing any approval.[7]: ch. 1 
  • Anybody can send a transaction to the network without needing any approval; the network merely confirms that the transaction is legitimate.[60]: 32 

Conversely, researchers[who?] have pointed out a «trend towards centralization»[citation needed]. Although bitcoin can be sent directly from user to user, in practice intermediaries are widely used.[33]: 220–222  Bitcoin miners join large mining pools to minimize the variance of their income.[33]: 215, 219–222 [61]: 3 [62] Because transactions on the network are confirmed by miners, decentralization of the network requires that no single miner or mining pool obtains 51% of the hashing power, which would allow them to double-spend coins, prevent certain transactions from being verified and prevent other miners from earning income.[63] As of 2013 just six mining pools controlled 75% of overall bitcoin hashing power.[63] In 2014 mining pool Ghash.io obtained 51% hashing power which raised significant controversies about the safety of the network. The pool has voluntarily capped its hashing power at 39.99% and requested other pools to act responsibly for the benefit of the whole network.[64] Around the year 2017, over 70% of the hashing power and 90% of transactions were operating from China.[65]

According to researchers, other parts of the ecosystem are also «controlled by a small set of entities», notably the maintenance of the client software, online wallets, and simplified payment verification (SPV) clients.[63]

Privacy and fungibility

Bitcoin is pseudonymous, meaning that funds are not tied to real-world entities but rather bitcoin addresses. Owners of bitcoin addresses are not explicitly identified, but all transactions on the blockchain are public. In addition, transactions can be linked to individuals and companies through «idioms of use» (e.g., transactions that spend coins from multiple inputs indicate that the inputs may have a common owner) and corroborating public transaction data with known information on owners of certain addresses.[66] Additionally, bitcoin exchanges, where bitcoins are traded for traditional currencies, may be required by law to collect personal information.[67] To heighten financial privacy, a new bitcoin address can be generated for each transaction.[68]

While the Bitcoin network treats each bitcoin the same, thus establishing the basic level of fungibility, applications and individuals who use the network are free to break that principle. For instance, wallets and similar software technically handle all bitcoins equally, none is different from another. Still, the history of each bitcoin is registered and publicly available in the blockchain ledger, and that can allow users of chain analysis to refuse to accept bitcoins coming from controversial transactions.[69] For example, in 2012, Mt. Gox froze accounts of users who deposited bitcoins that were known to have just been stolen.[70]

Wallets

Bitcoin Core, a full client

Electrum, a lightweight client

A wallet stores the information necessary to transact bitcoins. While wallets are often described as a place to hold[71] or store bitcoins, due to the nature of the system, bitcoins are inseparable from the blockchain transaction ledger. A wallet is more correctly defined as something that «stores the digital credentials for your bitcoin holdings» and allows one to access (and spend) them. [7]: ch. 1, glossary  Bitcoin uses public-key cryptography, in which two cryptographic keys, one public and one private, are generated.[72] At its most basic, a wallet is a collection of these keys.

Software wallets

The first wallet program, simply named Bitcoin, and sometimes referred to as the Satoshi client, was released in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto as open-source software.[12] In version 0.5 the client moved from the wxWidgets user interface toolkit to Qt, and the whole bundle was referred to as Bitcoin-Qt.[73] After the release of version 0.9, the software bundle was renamed Bitcoin Core to distinguish itself from the underlying network.[74][75] Bitcoin Core is, perhaps, the best known implementation or client. Alternative clients (forks of Bitcoin Core) exist, such as Bitcoin XT, Bitcoin Unlimited,[76] and Parity Bitcoin.[77]

There are several modes in which wallets can operate in. They have an inverse relationship with regard to trustlessness and computational requirements.

  • Full clients verify transactions directly by downloading a full copy of the blockchain (over 150 GB as of January 2018).[citation needed] They do not require trust in any external parties. Full clients check the validity of mined blocks, preventing them from transacting on a chain that breaks or alters network rules.[7]: ch. 1  Because of its size and complexity, downloading and verifying the entire blockchain is not suitable for all computing devices.
  • Lightweight clients consult full nodes to send and receive transactions without requiring a local copy of the entire blockchain (see simplified payment verification – SPV). This makes lightweight clients much faster to set up and allows them to be used on low-power, low-bandwidth devices such as smartphones. When using a lightweight wallet, however, the user must trust full nodes, as it can report faulty values back to the user. Lightweight clients follow the longest blockchain and do not ensure it is valid, requiring trust in full nodes.[78]

Third-party internet services called online wallets or webwallets offer similar functionality but may be easier to use. In this case, credentials to access funds are stored with the online wallet provider rather than on the user’s hardware.[79] As a result, the user must have complete trust in the online wallet provider. A malicious provider or a breach in server security may cause entrusted bitcoins to be stolen. An example of such a security breach occurred with Mt. Gox in 2011.[80]

Cold storage

A paper wallet with the address visible for adding or checking stored funds. The part of the page containing the private key is folded over and sealed.

A hardware wallet peripheral which processes bitcoin payments without exposing any credentials to the computer

Wallet software is targeted by hackers because of the lucrative potential for stealing bitcoins.[42] A technique called «cold storage» keeps private keys out of reach of hackers; this is accomplished by keeping private keys offline at all times[81][7]: ch. 4  by generating them on a device that is not connected to the internet.[82]: 39  The credentials necessary to spend bitcoins can be stored offline in a number of different ways, from specialized hardware wallets to simple paper printouts of the private key.[7]: ch. 10 

Hardware wallets

A hardware wallet is a computer peripheral that signs transactions as requested by the user. These devices store private keys and carry out signing and encryption internally,[81] and do not share any sensitive information with the host computer except already signed (and thus unalterable) transactions.[83] Because hardware wallets never expose their private keys, even computers that may be compromised by malware do not have a vector to access or steal them.[82]: 42–45 

The user sets a passcode when setting up a hardware wallet.[81] As hardware wallets are tamper-resistant,[83][7]: ch. 10  the passcode will be needed to extract any money.[83]

Paper wallets

A paper wallet is created with a keypair generated on a computer with no internet connection; the private key is written or printed onto the paper[i] and then erased from the computer.[7]: ch. 4  The paper wallet can then be stored in a safe physical location for later retrieval.[82]: 39 

Physical wallets can also take the form of metal token coins[84] with a private key accessible under a security hologram in a recess struck on the reverse side.[85]: 38  The security hologram self-destructs when removed from the token, showing that the private key has been accessed.[86] Originally, these tokens were struck in brass and other base metals, but later used precious metals as bitcoin grew in value and popularity.[85]: 80  Coins with stored face value as high as ₿1,000 have been struck in gold.[85]: 102–104  The British Museum’s coin collection includes four specimens from the earliest series[85]: 83  of funded bitcoin tokens; one is currently on display in the museum’s money gallery.[87] In 2013, a Utah manufacturer of these tokens was ordered by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to register as a money services business before producing any more funded bitcoin tokens.[84][85]: 80 

History

Creation

External images
image icon Cover page of The Times 3 January 2009 showing the headline used in the genesis block
image icon Infamous photo of the two pizzas purchased by Laszlo Hanyecz for ₿10,000

The domain name bitcoin.org was registered on 18 August 2008.[88] On 31 October 2008, a link to a paper authored by Satoshi Nakamoto titled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System[3] was posted to a cryptography mailing list.[89] Nakamoto implemented the bitcoin software as open-source code and released it in January 2009.[90][91][12] Nakamoto’s identity remains unknown.[11]

No uniform convention for bitcoin capitalization exists; some sources use Bitcoin, capitalized, to refer to the technology and network and bitcoin, lowercase, for the unit of account.[92] The Wall Street Journal,[93] The Chronicle of Higher Education,[94] and the Oxford English Dictionary[14] advocate the use of lowercase bitcoin in all cases.

On 3 January 2009, the bitcoin network was created when Nakamoto mined the starting block of the chain, known as the genesis block.[95][96] Embedded in the coinbase of this block was the text «The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks».[12] This note references a headline published by The Times and has been interpreted as both a timestamp and a comment on the instability caused by fractional-reserve banking.[97]: 18 

The receiver of the first bitcoin transaction was Hal Finney, who had created the first reusable proof-of-work system (RPoW) in 2004.[98] Finney downloaded the bitcoin software on its release date, and on 12 January 2009 received ten bitcoins from Nakamoto.[99][100] Other early cypherpunk supporters were creators of bitcoin predecessors: Wei Dai, creator of b-money, and Nick Szabo, creator of bit gold.[95] In 2010, the first known commercial transaction using bitcoin occurred when programmer Laszlo Hanyecz bought two Papa John’s pizzas for ₿10,000 from Jeremy Sturdivant.[101][103][104][105]

Blockchain analysts estimate that Nakamoto had mined about one million bitcoins[106] before disappearing in 2010 when he handed the network alert key and control of the code repository over to Gavin Andresen. Andresen later became lead developer at the Bitcoin Foundation.[107][108] Andresen then sought to decentralize control. This left opportunity for controversy to develop over the future development path of bitcoin, in contrast to the perceived authority of Nakamoto’s contributions.[76][108]

2011–2012

After early «proof-of-concept» transactions, the first major users of bitcoin were black markets, such as Silk Road. During its 30 months of existence, beginning in February 2011, Silk Road exclusively accepted bitcoins as payment, transacting ₿9.9 million, worth about $214 million.[33]: 222 

In 2011, the price started at $0.30 per bitcoin, growing to $5.27 for the year. The price rose to $31.50 on 8 June. Within a month, the price fell to $11.00. The next month it fell to $7.80, and in another month to $4.77.[109]

In 2012, bitcoin prices started at $5.27, growing to $13.30 for the year.[109] By 9 January the price had risen to $7.38, but then crashed by 49% to $3.80 over the next 16 days. The price then rose to $16.41 on 17 August, but fell by 57% to $7.10 over the next three days.[110]

The Bitcoin Foundation was founded in September 2012 to promote bitcoin’s development and uptake.[111]

On 1 November 2011, the reference implementation Bitcoin-Qt version 0.5.0 was released. It introduced a front end that used the Qt user interface toolkit.[112] The software previously used Berkeley DB for database management. Developers switched to LevelDB in release 0.8 in order to reduce blockchain synchronization time.[citation needed] The update to this release resulted in a minor blockchain fork on 11 March 2013. The fork was resolved shortly afterwards.[citation needed] Seeding nodes through IRC was discontinued in version 0.8.2. From version 0.9.0 the software was renamed to Bitcoin Core. Transaction fees were reduced again by a factor of ten as a means to encourage microtransactions.[citation needed] Although Bitcoin Core does not use OpenSSL for the operation of the network, the software did use OpenSSL for remote procedure calls. Version 0.9.1 was released to remove the network’s vulnerability to the Heartbleed bug.[citation needed]

2013–2016

In 2013, prices started at $13.30 rising to $770 by 1 January 2014.[109]

In March 2013 the blockchain temporarily split into two independent chains with different rules due to a bug in version 0.8 of the bitcoin software. The two blockchains operated simultaneously for six hours, each with its own version of the transaction history from the moment of the split. Normal operation was restored when the majority of the network downgraded to version 0.7 of the bitcoin software, selecting the backwards-compatible version of the blockchain. As a result, this blockchain became the longest chain and could be accepted by all participants, regardless of their bitcoin software version.[113] During the split, the Mt. Gox exchange briefly halted bitcoin deposits and the price dropped by 23% to $37[113][114] before recovering to the previous level of approximately $48 in the following hours.[115]

The US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) established regulatory guidelines for «decentralized virtual currencies» such as bitcoin, classifying American bitcoin miners who sell their generated bitcoins as Money Service Businesses (MSBs), that are subject to registration or other legal obligations.[116][118]

In April, exchanges BitInstant and Mt. Gox experienced processing delays due to insufficient capacity[119] resulting in the bitcoin price dropping from $266 to $76 before returning to $160 within six hours.[120] The bitcoin price rose to $259 on 10 April, but then crashed by 83% to $45 over the next three days.[110]

On 15 May 2013, US authorities seized accounts associated with Mt. Gox after discovering it had not registered as a money transmitter with FinCEN in the US.[121][122] On 23 June 2013, the US Drug Enforcement Administration listed ₿11.02 as a seized asset in a United States Department of Justice seizure notice pursuant to 21 U.S.C. § 881. This marked the first time a government agency had seized bitcoin.[123] The FBI seized about ₿30,000[124] in October 2013 from the dark web website Silk Road, following the arrest of Ross William Ulbricht.[125][126][127] These bitcoins were sold at blind auction by the United States Marshals Service to venture capital investor Tim Draper.[124] Bitcoin’s price rose to $755 on 19 November and crashed by 50% to $378 the same day. On 30 November 2013, the price reached $1,163 before starting a long-term crash, declining by 87% to $152 in January 2015.[110]

On 5 December 2013, the People’s Bank of China prohibited Chinese financial institutions from using bitcoin.[128] After the announcement, the value of bitcoin dropped,[129] and Baidu no longer accepted bitcoins for certain services.[130] Buying real-world goods with any virtual currency had been illegal in China since at least 2009.[131]

In 2014, prices started at $770 and fell to $314 for the year.[109] On 30 July 2014, the Wikimedia Foundation started accepting donations of bitcoin.[132]

In 2015, prices started at $314 and rose to $434 for the year. In 2016, prices rose and climbed up to $998 by 1 January 2017.[109]

Release 0.10 of the software was made public on 16 February 2015. It introduced a consensus library which gave programmers easy access to the rules governing consensus on the network. In version 0.11.2 developers added a new feature which allowed transactions to be made unspendable until a specific time in the future.[133]

In July 2016, the CheckSequenceVerify soft fork activated.[134] In August 2016, the Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange platform was hacked in the second-largest breach of a Bitcoin exchange platform up to that time, and ₿119,756,[135] worth about $72 million at the time, were stolen.[136]

In October 2016, Bitcoin Core’s 0.13.1 release featured the «Segwit» soft fork that included a scaling improvement aiming to optimize the bitcoin blocksize.[citation needed] The patch was originally finalized in April, and 35 developers were engaged to deploy it.[citation needed] This release featured Segregated Witness (SegWit) which aimed to place downward pressure on transaction fees as well as increase the maximum transaction capacity of the network.[137][non-primary source needed] The 0.13.1 release endured extensive testing and research leading to some delays in its release date.[citation needed] SegWit prevents various forms of transaction malleability.[138][non-primary source needed]

2017–2019

Research produced by the University of Cambridge estimated that in 2017, there were 2.9 to 5.8 million unique users using a cryptocurrency wallet, most of them using bitcoin.[139] On 15 July 2017, the controversial Segregated Witness [SegWit] software upgrade was approved («locked-in»). Segwit was intended to support the Lightning Network as well as improve scalability.[140] SegWit was subsequently activated on the network on 24 August 2017. The bitcoin price rose almost 50% in the week following SegWit’s approval.[140] On 21 July 2017, bitcoin was trading at $2,748, up 52% from 14 July 2017’s $1,835.[140] Supporters of large blocks who were dissatisfied with the activation of SegWit forked the software on 1 August 2017 to create Bitcoin Cash, becoming one of many forks of bitcoin such as Bitcoin Gold.[141]

Prices started at $998 in 2017 and rose to $13,412.44 on 1 January 2018,[109] after reaching its all-time high of $19,783.06 on 17 December 2017.[142]

China banned trading in bitcoin, with first steps taken in September 2017, and a complete ban that started on 1 February 2018. Bitcoin prices then fell from $9,052 to $6,914 on 5 February 2018.[110] The percentage of bitcoin trading in the Chinese renminbi fell from over 90% in September 2017 to less than 1% in June 2018.[143]

Throughout the rest of the first half of 2018, bitcoin’s price fluctuated between $11,480 and $5,848. On 1 July 2018, bitcoin’s price was $6,343.[144][145] The price on 1 January 2019 was $3,747, down 72% for 2018 and down 81% since the all-time high.[144][146]

In September 2018, an anonymous party discovered and reported an invalid-block denial-of-server vulnerability to developers of Bitcoin Core, Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin Unlimited. Further analysis by bitcoin developers showed the issue could also allow the creation of blocks violating the 21 million coin limit and CVE-2018-17144 was assigned and the issue resolved.[147][non-primary source needed]

Bitcoin prices were negatively affected by several hacks or thefts from cryptocurrency exchanges, including thefts from Coincheck in January 2018, Bithumb in June, and Bancor in July. For the first six months of 2018, $761 million worth of cryptocurrencies was reported stolen from exchanges.[148] Bitcoin’s price was affected even though other cryptocurrencies were stolen at Coinrail and Bancor as investors worried about the security of cryptocurrency exchanges.[149][150][151] In September 2019, the Intercontinental Exchange (the owner of the NYSE) began trading of bitcoin futures on its exchange called Bakkt.[152] Bakkt also announced that it would launch options on bitcoin in December 2019.[153] In December 2019, YouTube removed bitcoin and cryptocurrency videos, but later restored the content after judging they had «made the wrong call».[154]

In February 2019, Canadian cryptocurrency exchange Quadriga Fintech Solutions failed with approximately $200 million missing.[155] By June 2019 the price had recovered to $13,000.[156]

2020–present

Bitcoin price in US dollars

On 13 March 2020, bitcoin fell below $4,000 during a broad market selloff, after trading above $10,000 in February 2020.[157] On 11 March 2020, 281,000 bitcoins were sold, held by owners for only thirty days.[156] This compared to ₿4,131 that had laid dormant for a year or more, indicating that the vast majority of the bitcoin volatility on that day was from recent buyers. During the week of 11 March 2020, cryptocurrency exchange Kraken experienced an 83% increase in the number of account signups over the week of bitcoin’s price collapse, a result of buyers looking to capitalize on the low price.[156] These events were attributed to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In August 2020, MicroStrategy invested $250 million in bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset.[158] In October 2020, Square, Inc. placed approximately 1% of total assets ($50 million) in bitcoin.[159] In November 2020, PayPal announced that US users could buy, hold, or sell bitcoin.[160] On 30 November 2020, the bitcoin value reached a new all-time high of $19,860, topping the previous high of December 2017.[161] Alexander Vinnik, founder of BTC-e, was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for money laundering in France while refusing to testify during his trial.[162] In December 2020, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company announced a bitcoin purchase of US$100 million, or roughly 0.04% of its general investment account.[163]

On 19 January 2021, Elon Musk placed the handle #Bitcoin in his Twitter profile, tweeting «In retrospect, it was inevitable», which caused the price to briefly rise about $5,000 in an hour to $37,299.[164] On 25 January 2021, Microstrategy announced that it continued to buy bitcoin and as of the same date it had holdings of ₿70,784 worth $2.38 billion.[165] On 8 February 2021 Tesla’s announcement of a bitcoin purchase of US$1.5 billion and the plan to start accepting bitcoin as payment for vehicles, pushed the bitcoin price to $44,141.[166] On 18 February 2021, Elon Musk stated that «owning bitcoin was only a little better than holding conventional cash, but that the slight difference made it a better asset to hold».[167] After 49 days of accepting the digital currency, Tesla reversed course on 12 May 2021, saying they would no longer take bitcoin due to concerns that «mining» the cryptocurrency was contributing to the consumption of fossil fuels and climate change.[168] The decision resulted in the price of bitcoin dropping around 12% on 13 May.[169] During a July bitcoin conference, Musk suggested Tesla could possibly help bitcoin miners switch to renewable energy in the future and also stated at the same conference that if bitcoin mining reaches, and trends above 50 percent renewable energy usage, that «Tesla would resume accepting bitcoin.» The price for bitcoin rose after this announcement.[170]

In June 2021, the Taproot network software upgrade was approved, adding support for Schnorr signatures, improved functionality of Smart contracts and Lightning Network.[171] The upgrade was activated in November.[172]

In September 2021, Bitcoin in El Salvador became legal tender, alongside the US dollar.[173][8]

On 16 October 2021, the SEC approved the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF, a cash-settled futures exchange-traded fund (ETF). The first bitcoin ETF in the United States gained 5% on its first trading day on 19 October 2021.[174][175]

On 25 March 2022, Pavel Zavalny stated that Russia might accept bitcoin for payment for oil and gas exports, in response to sanctions stemming from the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[176]

On 27 April 2022 Central African Republic adopted bitcoin as legal tender alongside the CFA franc.[177][9]

On May 10, 2022, the bitcoin price fell to $31,324, as a result of a collapse of a UST stablecoin experiment named Terra, with bitcoin down more than 50% since the November 2021 high.[178] By June 13, 2022, the Celsius Network (a decentralized finance loan company) halted withdrawals and resulted in the bitcoin price falling below $20,000.[179][180]

In May 2022, following a vote by Wikipedia editors the previous month, the Wikimedia Foundation announced it would stop accepting donations in bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies—eight years after it had first started taking contributions in bitcoin.[181][182]

Associated ideologies

Satoshi Nakamoto stated in an essay accompanying bitcoin’s code that: «The root problem with conventional currencies is all the trust that’s required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust.»[183]

Austrian economics roots

According to the European Central Bank, the decentralization of money offered by bitcoin has its theoretical roots in the Austrian school of economics, especially with Friedrich von Hayek in his book Denationalisation of Money: The Argument Refined,[184] in which Hayek advocates a complete free market in the production, distribution and management of money to end the monopoly of central banks.[185]: 22 

Anarchism and libertarianism

According to The New York Times, libertarians and anarchists were attracted to the philosophical idea behind bitcoin. Early bitcoin supporter Roger Ver said: «At first, almost everyone who got involved did so for philosophical reasons. We saw bitcoin as a great idea, as a way to separate money from the state.»[183] The Economist describes bitcoin as «a techno-anarchist project to create an online version of cash, a way for people to transact without the possibility of interference from malicious governments or banks».[186] Economist Paul Krugman argues that cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are «something of a cult» based in «paranoid fantasies» of government power.[187]

External video
video icon The Declaration Of Bitcoin’s Independence, BraveTheWorld, 4:38[188]

Nigel Dodd argues in The Social Life of Bitcoin that the essence of the bitcoin ideology is to remove money from social, as well as governmental, control.[189] Dodd quotes a YouTube video, with Roger Ver, Jeff Berwick, Charlie Shrem, Andreas Antonopoulos, Gavin Wood, Trace Meyer and other proponents of bitcoin reading The Declaration of Bitcoin’s Independence. The declaration includes a message of crypto-anarchism with the words: «Bitcoin is inherently anti-establishment, anti-system, and anti-state. Bitcoin undermines governments and disrupts institutions because bitcoin is fundamentally humanitarian.»[189][188]

David Golumbia says that the ideas influencing bitcoin advocates emerge from right-wing extremist movements such as the Liberty Lobby and the John Birch Society and their anti-Central Bank rhetoric, or, more recently, Ron Paul and Tea Party-style libertarianism.[190] Steve Bannon, who owns a «good stake» in bitcoin, considers it to be «disruptive populism. It takes control back from central authorities. It’s revolutionary.»[191]

A 2014 study of Google Trends data found correlations between bitcoin-related searches and ones related to computer programming and illegal activity, but not libertarianism or investment topics.[192]

Economics

Bitcoin is a digital asset designed to work in peer-to-peer transactions as a currency.[3][193] Bitcoins have three qualities useful in a currency, according to The Economist in January 2015: they are «hard to earn, limited in supply and easy to verify».[194] Per some researchers, as of 2015, bitcoin functions more as a payment system than as a currency.[33]

Economists define money as serving the following three purposes: a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of account.[195] According to The Economist in 2014, bitcoin functions best as a medium of exchange.[195] However, this is debated, and a 2018 assessment by The Economist stated that cryptocurrencies met none of these three criteria.[186]
Yale economist Robert J. Shiller writes that bitcoin has potential as a unit of account for measuring the relative value of goods, as with Chile’s Unidad de Fomento, but that «Bitcoin in its present form … doesn’t really solve any sensible economic problem».[196]

According to research by the University of Cambridge, between 2.9 million and 5.8 million unique users used a cryptocurrency wallet in 2017, most of them for bitcoin. The number of users has grown significantly since 2013, when there were 300,000–1.3 million users.[139]

Acceptance by merchants

Dish Network, a Fortune 500 subscription TV provider, has been described as the first large company to accept bitcoin, in 2014.[197]

Bloomberg reported that the largest 17 crypto merchant-processing services handled $69 million in June 2018, down from $411 million in September 2017. Bitcoin is «not actually usable» for retail transactions because of high costs and the inability to process chargebacks, according to Nicholas Weaver, a researcher quoted by Bloomberg. High price volatility and transaction fees make paying for small retail purchases with bitcoin impractical, according to economist Kim Grauer. However, bitcoin continues to be used for large-item purchases on sites such as Overstock.com, and for cross-border payments to freelancers and other vendors.[198]

In 2017 and 2018, bitcoin’s acceptance among major online retailers included only three of the top 500 U.S. online merchants, down from five in 2016.[199] Reasons for this decline include high transaction fees due to bitcoin’s scalability issues and long transaction times.[200]

As of 2018, the overwhelming majority of bitcoin transactions took place on cryptocurrency exchanges, rather than being used in transactions with merchants.[199] Delays processing payments through the blockchain of about ten minutes make bitcoin use very difficult in a retail setting. Prices are not usually quoted in units of bitcoin and many trades involve one, or sometimes two, conversions into conventional currencies.[33] Merchants that do accept bitcoin payments may use payment service providers to perform the conversions.[201]

Financial institutions

Bitcoins can be bought on digital currency exchanges.

Per researchers, «there is little sign of bitcoin use» in international remittances despite high fees charged by banks and Western Union who compete in this market.[33] The South China Morning Post, however, mentions the use of bitcoin by Hong Kong workers to transfer money home.[202]

In 2014, the National Australia Bank closed accounts of businesses with ties to bitcoin,[203] and HSBC refused to serve a hedge fund with links to bitcoin.[204] Australian banks in general have been reported as closing down bank accounts of operators of businesses involving the currency.[205]

On 10 December 2017, the Chicago Board Options Exchange started trading bitcoin futures,[206] followed by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which started trading bitcoin futures on 17 December 2017.[207]

In September 2019 the Central Bank of Venezuela, at the request of PDVSA, ran tests to determine if bitcoin and ether could be held in central bank’s reserves. The request was motivated by oil company’s goal to pay its suppliers.[208]

François R. Velde, Senior Economist at the Chicago Fed, described bitcoin as «an elegant solution to the problem of creating a digital currency».[209] David Andolfatto, Vice President at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, stated that bitcoin is a threat to the establishment, which he argues is a good thing for the Federal Reserve System and other central banks, because it prompts these institutions to operate sound policies.[49]: 33 [210][211]

As an investment

The Winklevoss twins have purchased bitcoin. In 2013, The Washington Post reported a claim that they owned 1% of all the bitcoins in existence at the time.[212]

Other methods of investment are bitcoin funds. The first regulated bitcoin fund was established in Jersey in July 2014 and approved by the Jersey Financial Services Commission.[213]

Forbes named bitcoin the best investment of 2013.[214] In 2014, Bloomberg named bitcoin one of its worst investments of the year.[215] In 2015, bitcoin topped Bloomberg’s currency tables.[216]

According to bitinfocharts.com, in 2017, there were 9,272 bitcoin wallets with more than $1 million worth of bitcoins.[217] The exact number of bitcoin millionaires is uncertain as a single person can have more than one bitcoin wallet.

Venture capital

Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund invested US$3 million in BitPay.[218] In 2012, an incubator for bitcoin-focused start-ups was founded by Adam Draper, with financing help from his father, venture capitalist Tim Draper, one of the largest bitcoin holders after winning an auction of ₿30,000,[219] at the time called «mystery buyer».[220] The company’s goal is to fund 100 bitcoin businesses within 2–3 years with $10,000 to $20,000 for a 6% stake.[219] Investors also invest in bitcoin mining.[221] According to a 2015 study by Paolo Tasca, bitcoin startups raised almost $1 billion in three years (Q1 2012 – Q1 2015).[222]

Price and volatility

The price of bitcoins has gone through cycles of appreciation and depreciation referred to by some as bubbles and busts.[223] In 2011, the value of one bitcoin rapidly rose from about US$0.30 to US$32 before returning to US$2.[224] In the latter half of 2012 and during the 2012–13 Cypriot financial crisis, the bitcoin price began to rise,[225] reaching a high of US$266 on 10 April 2013, before crashing to around US$50. On 29 November 2013, the cost of one bitcoin rose to a peak of US$1,242.[226] In 2014, the price fell sharply, and as of April remained depressed at little more than half 2013 prices. As of August 2014 it was under US$600.[227]

According to Mark T. Williams, as of 30 September 2014, bitcoin has volatility seven times greater than gold, eight times greater than the S&P 500, and 18 times greater than the US dollar.[228] Hodl is a meme created in reference to holding (as opposed to selling) during periods of volatility. Unusual for an asset, bitcoin weekend trading during December 2020 was higher than for weekdays.[229] Hedge funds (using high leverage and derivates)[230] have attempted to use the volatility to profit from downward price movements. At the end of January 2021, such positions were over $1 billion, their highest of all time.[231]
As of 8 February 2021, the closing price of bitcoin equaled US$44,797.[232]

Legal status, tax and regulation

The legal status of bitcoin varies substantially from country to country and is still undefined or changing in many of them. Regulations and bans that apply to bitcoin probably extend to similar cryptocurrency systems.[222] Because of its decentralized nature and its trading on online exchanges located in many countries, regulation of bitcoin has been difficult. However, the use of bitcoin can be criminalized, and shutting down exchanges and the peer-to-peer economy in a given country would constitute a de facto ban.[233]

According to the Library of Congress, an «absolute ban» on trading or using cryptocurrencies applies in nine countries: Algeria, Bolivia, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, Nepal, Pakistan, Vietnam, and the United Arab Emirates. An «implicit ban» applies in another 42 countries, which include Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Kuwait, Lesotho, Lithuania, Macau, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Taiwan.[234] On 22 October 2015, the European Court of Justice ruled that bitcoin transactions would be exempt from Value Added Tax.[235]

Regulatory warnings

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has issued four «Customer Advisories» for bitcoin and related investments.[236] A July 2018 warning emphasized that trading in any cryptocurrency is often speculative, and there is a risk of theft from hacking, and fraud.[237] In May 2014 the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission warned that investments involving bitcoin might have high rates of fraud, and that investors might be solicited on social media sites.[238] An earlier «Investor Alert» warned about the use of bitcoin in Ponzi schemes.[239]

The European Banking Authority issued a warning in 2013 focusing on the lack of regulation of bitcoin, the chance that exchanges would be hacked, the volatility of bitcoin’s price, and general fraud.[240] FINRA and the North American Securities Administrators Association have both issued investor alerts about bitcoin.[241][242]

Price manipulation investigation

An official investigation into bitcoin traders was reported in May 2018.[243] The U.S. Justice Department launched an investigation into possible price manipulation, including the techniques of spoofing and wash trades.[244][245][246]

The U.S. federal investigation was prompted by concerns of possible manipulation during futures settlement dates. The final settlement price of CME bitcoin futures is determined by prices on four exchanges, Bitstamp, Coinbase, itBit and Kraken. Following the first delivery date in January 2018, the CME requested extensive detailed trading information but several of the exchanges refused to provide it and later provided only limited data. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission then subpoenaed the data from the exchanges.[247][248]

State and provincial securities regulators, coordinated through the North American Securities Administrators Association, are investigating «bitcoin scams» and ICOs in 40 jurisdictions.[249]

Academic research published in the Journal of Monetary Economics concluded that price manipulation occurred during the Mt Gox bitcoin theft and that the market remains vulnerable to manipulation.[250] The history of hacks, fraud and theft involving bitcoin dates back to at least 2011.[251]

Research by John M. Griffin and Amin Shams in 2018 suggests that trading associated with increases in the amount of the Tether cryptocurrency and associated trading at the Bitfinex exchange account for about half of the price increase in bitcoin in late 2017.[252][253]

J.L. van der Velde, CEO of both Bitfinex and Tether, denied the claims of price manipulation: «Bitfinex nor Tether is, or has ever, engaged in any sort of market or price manipulation. Tether issuances cannot be used to prop up the price of bitcoin or any other coin/token on Bitfinex.»[254]

Use by governments

In June 2021, the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador voted legislation to make bitcoin legal tender in El Salvador, alongside the US dollar.[j][262][258][263] The law took effect on 7 September, making El Salvador the first country to do so.[264][265][8] The implementation of the law has been met with protests[266] and calls to make the currency optional, not compulsory.[267] According to a survey by the Central American University, the majority of Salvadorans disagreed with using cryptocurrency as a legal tender,[268][269] and a survey by the Center for Citizen Studies (CEC) showed that 91% of the country prefers the dollar over bitcoin.[270] As of October 2021, the country’s government was exploring mining bitcoin with geothermal power and issuing bonds tied to bitcoin.[271] According to a survey done by the Central American University 100 days after the Bitcoin Law came into force: 34.8% of the population has no confidence in bitcoin, 35.3% has little confidence, 13.2% has some confidence, and 14.1% has a lot of confidence. 56.6% of respondents have downloaded the government bitcoin wallet; among them 62.9% has never used it or only once whereas 36.3% uses bitcoin at least once a month.[272][273] In 2022, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) urged El Salvador to reverse its decision after bitcoin lost half its value in two months. The IMF also warned that it would be difficult to get a loan from the institution.[274] According to one report in 2022, 80% of businesses refused to accept bitcoin despite being legally required to.[275]

In April 2022, the Central African Republic (CAR) adopted Bitcoin as legal tender alongside the CFA franc. After El Salvador, CAR is the second country to do so.[177][9]

Ukraine is accepting donations in cryptocurrency, including bitcoin, to fund the resistance against the Russian invasion.[276][277][278][279][280] According to the officials, 40% of the Ukraine’s military suppliers are willing to accept cryptocurrencies without converting them into euros or dollars.[281] In March 2022, Ukraine has passed a law that creates a legal framework for the cryptocurrency industry in the country,[282] including judicial protection of the right to own virtual assets.[283] In the same month, a cryptocurrency exchange was integrated into the Ukrainian e-governance service Diia.[284]

Iran announced pending regulations that would require bitcoin miners in Iran to sell bitcoin to the Central Bank of Iran, and the central bank would use it for imports.[285] Iran, as of October 2020, had issued over 1,000 bitcoin mining licenses.[285] The Iranian government initially took a stance against cryptocurrency, but later changed it after seeing that digital currency could be used to circumvent sanctions.[286] The US Office of Foreign Assets Control listed two Iranians and their bitcoin addresses as part of its Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List for their role in the 2018 Atlanta cyberattack whose ransom was paid in bitcoin.[287]

Some constituent states accept tax payments in bitcoin, including Colorado (US)[288] and Zug (Switzerland).[289][290]

Economic and legal concerns

Bitcoin, along with other cryptocurrencies, has been described as an economic bubble by at least eight Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences laureates, including Robert Shiller,[196] Joseph Stiglitz,[291] and Richard Thaler.[292][16] Economist and columnist Paul Krugman has described bitcoin as «a bubble wrapped in techno-mysticism inside a cocoon of libertarian ideology»,[187] economist Nouriel Roubini of New York University has called bitcoin the «mother of all bubbles»,[293] and University of Chicago economist James Heckman has compared it to the 17th-century tulip mania.[16]

Journalists, economists, investors, and the central bank of Estonia have voiced concerns that bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme.[294][295][296][297] Eric Posner, a law professor at the University of Chicago, states that «a real Ponzi scheme takes fraud; bitcoin, by contrast, seems more like a collective delusion.»[298] A 2014 report by the World Bank concluded that bitcoin was not a deliberate Ponzi scheme.[299]: 7  Also in 2014, the Swiss Federal Council examined concerns that bitcoin might be a pyramid scheme, and concluded that «since in the case of bitcoin the typical promises of profits are lacking, it cannot be assumed that bitcoin is a pyramid scheme.»[300]: 21 

Bitcoin wealth is highly concentrated, with 0.01% holding 27% of in-circulation currency, as of 2021.[301]

Use in illegal transactions

The use of bitcoin by criminals has attracted the attention of financial regulators, legislative bodies, law enforcement, and the media.[302]

Several news outlets have asserted that the popularity of bitcoins hinges on the ability to use them to purchase illegal goods.[193][303] Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says that bitcoin’s anonymity encourages money laundering and other crimes.[304][305]

Environmental effects

The environmental effects of Bitcoin are considerable. One such environmental effect is that it worsens climate change.[306] This is because bitcoins are made using electricity partially generated by gas and coal-fired power plants. When burned, coal and natural gas emit greenhouse gases, which heat the Earth and change the climate.[307] As of 2022, such bitcoin mining is estimated to be responsible for 0.1% of world greenhouse gas emissions.[308] A second environmental effect is the air pollution caused by coal-fired electricity generation, and a third is the e-waste due to the short life expectancy of bitcoin-mining equipment.[306]

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency made by proof-of-work,[307][309] while some other cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum, are made by proof-of-stake,[310] which consumes less electricity.[311][312] As of 2022, the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) estimates that Bitcoin consumes around 100 TW⋅h (360 PJ) annually, and says bitcoin mining uses about as much electricity as Egypt.[313][314] But it is difficult to find out how the electricity used for mining was generated, and thus Bitcoin’s carbon footprint.[315][316][317][318] One study found that from 2016 to 2021, each US dollar worth of bitcoin mined caused 35 cents worth of climate damage, comparable to the beef industry and the gasoline industry.[319][320][321]

As of 2021, Bitcoin’s annual e-waste is estimated to be over 30,000 tonnes, which is comparable to the small IT equipment waste produced by the Netherlands. Creating one bitcoin generates 270 to 380 grams (9.5 to 13.4 oz) of e-waste. The average lifespan of bitcoin-mining devices is estimated to be about 1.3 years.[322][323][324] Unlike most computing hardware, the used application-specific integrated circuits have no alternative use beyond bitcoin mining.[325]

Reducing Bitcoin’s environmental effects is difficult; possible remedies include making bitcoin only where or when there is excess clean electricity.[326][327] Some policymakers have called for further restrictions or bans on bitcoin mining.[328][329]

Software implementation

Bitcoin Core

Bitcoin-core-v0.10.0.png

The start screen under Fedora Linux
Original author(s) Satoshi Nakamoto
Initial release 2009
Stable release 24.0.1 (12 December 2022; 2 months ago) [±]
Repository github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
Written in C++
Operating system Linux, Windows, macOS
Type Cryptocurrency
License MIT License
Website bitcoincore.org

Bitcoin Core is free and open-source software that serves as a bitcoin node (the set of which form the bitcoin network) and provides a bitcoin wallet which fully verifies payments. It is considered to be bitcoin’s reference implementation.[330] Initially, the software was published by Satoshi Nakamoto under the name «Bitcoin», and later renamed to «Bitcoin Core» to distinguish it from the network.[331] It is also known as the Satoshi client.[332]

The MIT Digital Currency Initiative funds some of the development of Bitcoin Core.[333] The project also maintains the cryptography library libsecp256k1.[334]

Bitcoin Core includes a transaction verification engine and connects to the bitcoin network as a full node.[332] Moreover, a cryptocurrency wallet, which can be used to transfer funds, is included by default.[334] The wallet allows for the sending and receiving of bitcoins. It does not facilitate the buying or selling of bitcoin. It allows users to generate QR codes to receive payment.

The software validates the entire blockchain, which includes all bitcoin transactions ever. This distributed ledger which has reached more than 235 gigabytes in size as of Jan 2019, must be downloaded or synchronized before full participation of the client may occur.[332] Although the complete blockchain is not needed all at once since it is possible to run in pruning mode. A command line-based daemon with a JSON-RPC interface, bitcoind, is bundled with Bitcoin Core. It also provides access to testnet, a global testing environment that imitates the bitcoin main network using an alternative blockchain where valueless «test bitcoins» are used. Regtest or Regression Test Mode creates a private blockchain which is used as a local testing environment.[335] Finally, bitcoin-cli, a simple program which allows users to send RPC commands to bitcoind, is also included.

Checkpoints which have been hard coded into the client are used only to prevent Denial of Service attacks against nodes which are initially syncing the chain. For this reason the checkpoints included are only as of several years ago.[336][337][failed verification] A one megabyte block size limit was added in 2010 by Satoshi Nakamoto. This limited the maximum network capacity to about three transactions per second.[338] Since then, network capacity has been improved incrementally both through block size increases and improved wallet behavior. A network alert system was included by Satoshi Nakamoto as a way of informing users of important news regarding bitcoin.[339] In November 2016 it was retired. It had become obsolete as news on bitcoin is now widely disseminated.

Bitcoin Core includes a scripting language inspired by Forth that can define transactions and specify parameters.[340] ScriptPubKey is used to «lock» transactions based on a set of future conditions. scriptSig is used to meet these conditions or «unlock» a transaction. Operations on the data are performed by various OP_Codes. Two stacks are used – main and alt. Looping is forbidden.

Bitcoin Core uses OpenTimestamps to timestamp merge commits.[341]

The original creator of the bitcoin client has described their approach to the software’s authorship as it being written first to prove to themselves that the concept of purely peer-to-peer electronic cash was valid and that a paper with solutions could be written. The lead developer is Wladimir J. van der Laan, who took over the role on 8 April 2014.[342] Gavin Andresen was the former lead maintainer for the software client. Andresen left the role of lead developer for bitcoin to work on the strategic development of its technology.[342] Bitcoin Core in 2015 was central to a dispute with Bitcoin XT, a competing client that sought to increase the blocksize.[343] Over a dozen different companies and industry groups fund the development of Bitcoin Core.

In popular culture

Term «HODL»

Hodl ( HOD-əl; often written HODL) is slang in the cryptocurrency community for holding a cryptocurrency rather than selling it. A person who does this is known as a Hodler. It originated in a December 2013 post on the Bitcoin Forum message board by an apparently inebriated user who posted with a typo in the subject, «I AM HODLING.»[344] It is often humorously suggested to be a backronym to «hold on for dear life».[345] In 2017, Quartz listed it as one of the essential slang terms in bitcoin culture, and described it as a stance, «to stay invested in bitcoin and not to capitulate in the face of plunging prices.»[346] TheStreet.com referred to it as the «favorite mantra» of bitcoin holders.[347] Bloomberg News referred to it as a mantra for holders during market routs.[348]

Literature

In Charles Stross’ 2013 science fiction novel, Neptune’s Brood, the universal interstellar payment system is known as «bitcoin» and operates using cryptography.[349] Stross later blogged that the reference was intentional, saying «I wrote Neptune’s Brood in 2011. Bitcoin was obscure back then, and I figured had just enough name recognition to be a useful term for an interstellar currency: it’d clue people in that it was a networked digital currency.»[350]

Film

The 2014 documentary The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin portrays the diversity of motives behind the use of bitcoin by interviewing people who use it. These include a computer programmer and a drug dealer.[351] The 2016 documentary Banking on Bitcoin is an introduction to the beginnings of bitcoin and the ideas behind cryptocurrency today.[352]

Music

In 2018, a Japanese band called Kasotsuka Shojo – Virtual Currency Girls – launched. Each of the eight members represented a cryptocurrency, including bitcoin, Ethereum and Cardano.[353][354]

Academia

In September 2015, the establishment of the peer-reviewed academic journal Ledger (ISSN 2379-5980) was announced. It covers studies of cryptocurrencies and related technologies, and is published by the University of Pittsburgh.[355] The journal encourages authors to digitally sign a file hash of submitted papers, which will then be timestamped into the bitcoin blockchain. Authors are also asked to include a personal bitcoin address in the first page of their papers.[356][357]

See also

  • Alternative currency
  • Base58
  • Crypto-anarchism
  • List of bitcoin companies
  • List of bitcoin organizations
  • SHA-256 crypto currencies
  • Virtual currency law in the United States

Notes

  1. ^ a b As of 2014, BTC is a commonly used code. It does not conform to ISO 4217 as BT is the country code of Bhutan, and ISO 4217 requires the first letter used in global commodities to be ‘X’.
  2. ^ a b As of 2014, XBT, a code that conforms to ISO 4217 though is not officially part of it, is used by Bloomberg L.P.,[27] CNNMoney,[28] and xe.com.[29]
  3. ^ The genesis block is block number 0. The timestamp of the block is 2009-01-03 18:15:05. This block is unlike all other blocks in that it does not have a previous block to reference.
  4. ^ Bitcoin uses a custom elliptic curve called «secp256k1» with the ECDSA algorithm to produce signatures. The equation for this curve is y2=x3+7.[38] A proposed upgrade that would add support for Schnorr signatures is in development.[39]: 101 
  5. ^ Relative mining difficulty is defined as the ratio of the difficulty target on 9 January 2009 to the current difficulty target.
  6. ^ It is misleading to think that there is an analogy between gold mining and bitcoin mining. The fact is that gold miners are rewarded for producing gold, while bitcoin miners are not rewarded for producing bitcoins; they are rewarded for their record-keeping services.[49]
  7. ^ The system used is based on Adam Back’s 1997 anti-spam scheme, Hashcash.[50][failed verification][3]
  8. ^ The exact number is ₿20,999,999.9769.[7]: ch. 8 
  9. ^ The private key can be printed as a series of letters and numbers, a seed phrase, or a 2D barcode. Usually, the public key or bitcoin address is also printed, so that a holder of a paper wallet can check or add funds without exposing the private key to a device.
  10. ^ According to some reports, the law was approved on 8 June.[255][256][257] According to others, it was approved on 9 June.[258][173][259] The law was voted during the 8 June parliamentary session, and published in the official journal on 9 June.[260][261]

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External links

  • Media related to Bitcoin at Wikimedia Commons
  • Official website
  • Bitcoin at Curlie
Источник

Julie Bang / Investopedia


Bitcoin (BTC) is a cryptocurrency, a virtual currency designed to act as money and a form of payment outside the control of any one person, group, or entity, thus removing the need for third-party involvement in financial transactions. It is rewarded to blockchain miners for the work done to verify transactions and can be purchased on several exchanges.

Bitcoin was introduced to the public in 2009 by an anonymous developer or group of developers using the name Satoshi Nakamoto.

It has since become the most well-known cryptocurrency in the world. Its popularity has inspired the development of many other cryptocurrencies. These competitors either attempt to replace it as a payment system or are used as utility or security tokens in other blockchains and emerging financial technologies.

Learn more about the cryptocurrency that started it all—the history behind it, how it works, how to get it, and what it can be used for.

Key Takeaways

  • Launched in 2009, Bitcoin is the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
  • Unlike fiat currency, Bitcoin is created, distributed, traded, and stored using a decentralized ledger system known as a blockchain.
  • Bitcoin and its ledger are secured by proof-of-work (PoW) consensus, which is also the «mining» process that introduces new bitcoins into the system.
  • Bitcoin can be purchased via various cryptocurrency exchanges.
  • Bitcoin’s history as a store of value has been turbulent; it has gone through several boom and bust cycles over its relatively short lifespan.
  • As the first decentralized virtual currency to meet widespread popularity and success, Bitcoin has inspired a host of other cryptocurrencies in its wake.

What Is Bitcoin

Understanding Bitcoin

In August 2008, the domain name Bitcoin.org was registered. Today, at least, this domain is WhoisGuard Protected, meaning the identity of the person who registered it is not public information.

In October 2008, a person or group using the false name Satoshi Nakamoto announced the Cryptography Mailing List at metzdowd.com: «I’ve been working on a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.» This now-famous white paper published on Bitcoin.org, entitled «Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,» would become the Magna Carta for how Bitcoin operates today.

On Jan. 3, 2009, the first Bitcoin block was mined—Block 0. This is also known as the «genesis block» and contains the text: «The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks,» perhaps proof that the block was mined on or after that date, and maybe also as relevant political commentary.

Bitcoin rewards are halved every 210,000 blocks. For example, the block reward was 50 new bitcoins in 2009. On May 11, 2020, the third halving occurred, bringing the reward for each block discovery down to 6.25 bitcoins.

One bitcoin is divisible to eight decimal places (100 millionths of one bitcoin), and this smallest unit is referred to as a satoshi. If necessary, and if the participating miners accept the change, Bitcoin could eventually be made divisible to even more decimal places.

Bitcoin, as a form of digital currency, isn’t too complicated to understand. For example, if you own a bitcoin, you can use your cryptocurrency wallet to send smaller portions of that bitcoin as payment for goods or services. However, it becomes very complex when you try to understand how it works.

On Jan. 8, 2009, the first version of the Bitcoin software was announced to the Cryptography Mailing List, and on Jan. 9, 2009, Block 1 was mined, and Bitcoin mining commenced in earnest.

Bitcoin’s Blockchain Technology

Cryptocurrencies are part of a blockchain and the network required to power it. A blockchain is a distributed ledger, a shared database that stores data. Data within the blockchain is secured by encryption methods.

When a transaction takes place on the blockchain, information from the previous block is copied to a new block with the new data, encrypted, and the transaction is verified by validators—called miners—in the network. When a transaction is verified, a new block is opened, and a Bitcoin is created and given as a reward to the miner(s) who verified the data within the block—they are then free to use it, hold it, or sell it.

Bitcoin uses the SHA-256 hashing algorithm to encrypt the data stored in the blocks on the blockchain. Simply put, transaction data stored in a block is encrypted into a 256-bit hexadecimal number. That number contains all of the transaction data and information linked to the blocks before that block.

Data linked between blocks is what led to the ledger being called a blockchain.

Transactions are placed into a queue to be validated by miners within the network. Miners in the Bitcoin blockchain network all attempt to verify the same transaction simultaneously. The mining software and hardware work to solve the nonce, a four-byte number included in the block header that miners are attempting to solve.

The block header is hashed, or randomly regenerated by a miner repeatedly until it meets a target number specified by the blockchain. The block header is «solved,» and a new block is created for more transactions to be encrypted and verified.

How to Mine Bitcoin

A variety of hardware and software can be used to mine Bitcoin. When Bitcoin was first released, it was possible to mine it competitively on a personal computer; however, as it became more popular, more miners joined the network, which lowered the chances of being the one to solve the hash. You can still use your personal computer as a miner if it has newer hardware, but the chances of solving a hash individually are minuscule.

This is because you’re competing with a network of miners that generate around 220 quintillion hashes (220 exa hashes) per second. Machines, called Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), have been built specifically for mining—can generate around 255 trillion hashes per second. In contrast, a computer with the latest hardware hashes around 100 mega hashes per second (100 million).

To successfully become a Bitcoin miner, you have several options. You can use your existing personal computer to use mining software compatible with Bitcoin and join a mining pool. Mining pools are groups of miners that combine their computational power to compete with the large ASIC mining farms.

You increase your chances of being rewarded by joining a pool, but rewards are significantly decreased because they are shared.

If you have the financial means, you could also purchase an ASIC miner. You can generally find a new one for around $20,000, but used ones are also sold by miners as they upgrade their systems. There are some significant costs such as electricity and cooling to consider if you purchase one or more ASICs.

There are several mining programs to choose from and many pools you can join. Two of the most well-known programs are CGMiner and BFGMiner. When choosing a pool, it’s important to make sure you find out how they pay out rewards, what any fees might be, and read some mining pool reviews.

How Do You Buy Bitcoin?

If you don’t want to mine bitcoin, it can be bought using a cryptocurrency exchange. Most people will not be able to purchase an entire BTC because of its price, but you can buy portions of BTC on these exchanges in fiat currency like U.S. dollars. For example, you can buy bitcoin on Coinbase by creating an account and funding it. You can fund your account using your bank account, credit card, or debit card. The following video explains more about buying bitcoin.

How to Buy Bitcoin

How Is Bitcoin Used?

Bitcoin was initially designed and released as a peer-to-peer payment method. However, its use cases are growing due to its increasing value and competition from other blockchains and cryptocurrencies.

Payment

To use your Bitcoin, you need to have a cryptocurrency wallet. Wallets hold the private keys to the bitcoin you own, which need to be entered when you’re conducting a transaction. Bitcoin is accepted as a means of payment for goods and services at many merchants, retailers, and stores.

Brick-and-mortar stores that accept cryptocurrencies will generally display a sign that says “Bitcoin Accepted Here”; the transactions can be handled with the requisite hardware terminal or wallet address through QR codes and touchscreen apps. An online business can easily accept Bitcoin by adding this payment option to its other online payment options: credit cards, PayPal, etc.

El Salvador became the first country to officially adopt Bitcoin as legal tender in June 2021.

Investing and Speculating

Investors and speculators became interested in Bitcoin as it grew in popularity. Between 2009 and 2017, cryptocurrency exchanges emerged that facilitated bitcoin sales and purchases. Prices began to rise, and demand slowly grew until 2017, when its price broke $1,000. Many people believed Bitcoin prices would keep climbing and began buying them to hold. Traders began using cryptocurrency exchanges to make short-term trades, and the market took off.

In 2022, Bitcoin’s price came crashing down. In March 2022, it was as high as $47,454 and as of November 2022, it is $15,731. The drop in Bitcoin is partly due to larger market turmoil related to inflation, rising interest rates, supply chain issues from Covid, and the war in Ukraine. Additionally, some important tokens have crashed in the crypto world, as well as one of the important exchanges, which has raised concerns about the stability of digital currencies.

Risks of Investing in Bitcoin

Speculative investors have been drawn to Bitcoin after its rapid price appreciation in recent years. Bitcoin had a price of $7,167.52 on Dec. 31, 2019, and a year later, it had appreciated more than 300% to $28,984.98. It continued to surge in the first half of 2021, trading at a record high of $68,990 in November 2021—it then fell over the next few months to hover around $40,000. As mentioned above, in early 2022, the price started to drop and has continued to do so for most of 2022.

Bitcoin’s all-time high price is $68,990, reached in November 2021.

Thus, many people purchase Bitcoin for its investment value rather than its ability to act as a medium of exchange. However, the lack of guaranteed value and its digital nature means its purchase and use carry several inherent risks. For example, many investor alerts have been issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) regarding Bitcoin investing.

  • Regulatory risk: The lack of uniform regulations about Bitcoin (and other virtual currencies) raises questions over their longevity, liquidity, and universality.
  • Security risk: Most individuals who own and use Bitcoin have not acquired their tokens through mining operations. Rather, they buy and sell Bitcoin and other digital currencies on popular online markets, known as cryptocurrency exchanges. Bitcoin exchanges are entirely digital and—as with any virtual system—are at risk from hackers, malware, and operational glitches.
  • Insurance risk: Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are not insured through the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) or the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Some exchanges provide insurance through third parties. In 2019, prime dealer and trading platform SFOX announced it would be able to offer Bitcoin investors FDIC insurance, but only for the portion of transactions involving cash.
  • Fraud risk: Even with the security measures inherent within a blockchain, there are still opportunities for fraudulent activity. For instance, in July 2013, the SEC brought legal action against an operator of a Bitcoin-related Ponzi scheme.

  • Market risk: As with any investment, Bitcoin values can fluctuate. Indeed, the value of the currency has seen wild swings in price over its short existence. Subject to high-volume buying and selling on exchanges, it is highly sensitive to any newsworthy events. According to the CFPB, the price of Bitcoin fell by 61% in a single day in 2013, while the one-day price drop record in 2014 was as big as 80%.

Regulating Bitcoin

Like with any new technology, the attempts at regulating Bitcoin have been difficult. The current Biden administration seeks to impose regulations around Bitcoin, but at the same time walks a tightrope in trying not to throttle a growing and economically beneficial industry.

Biden has stated he will seek to prevent the illegal use of Bitcoin but also support its development. The U.S. has particularly been focused on regulating crypto and its criminal usage overseas, such as sanctioning cryptocurrency exchanges and individual cryptocurrency wallets and recovering crypto payments made to criminals. There have also been calls for the U.S. to develop a central bank digital currency (CBDC) to appropriately direct these sanctions.

As the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency world is emerging, so will the regulation, which will see many changes and laws over time.

How Long Does It Take to Mine One Bitcoin?

It takes an average of 10 minutes for the mining network to validate a block and create the reward. The Bitcoin reward is 6.25 BTC per block. This works out to be about 100 seconds for 1 BTC to be mined.

Is Bitcoin a Good Investment?

Bitcoin has a short investing history filled with very volatile prices. Whether it is a good investment depends on your financial profile, investing portfolio, risk tolerance, and investing goals. You should always consult a financial professional for advice before investing in cryptocurrency to ensure it is right for your circumstances.

How Does Bitcoin Make Money?

The Bitcoin network of miners makes money from Bitcoin by successfully validating blocks and being rewarded. Bitcoins are exchangeable for fiat currency via cryptocurrency exchanges and can be used to make purchases from merchants and retailers that accept them. Investors and speculators can make money from buying and selling bitcoins.

How Much Is $1 Bitcoin in U.S. Dollars?

As of Nov. 22, 2022, $1 Bitcoin is equal to $15,766 U.S. dollars.

How Many Bitcoins Are Left?

The total number of Bitcoins in existence is 19,214,106.25. The number of Bitcoins left to be mined is 1,785,893.8 as of Nov. 22, 2022.

The Bottom Line

Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency and is intended to be used as a form of payment outside of legal tender. Since its introduction in 2009, Bitcoin’s popularity has surged and its uses expanded, resulting in the creation of many new competitor cryptocurrencies.

Though the process of generating Bitcoin is complex, investing in it is more straightforward. Investors and speculators can buy and sell Bitcoin on crypto exchanges. As with any investment, particularly one as new and volatile as Bitcoin, investors should carefully consider if Bitcoin is the right investment for them.

Investing in cryptocurrencies and other Initial Coin Offerings (“ICOs”) is highly risky and speculative, and this article is not a recommendation by Investopedia or the writer to invest in cryptocurrencies or other ICOs. Since each individual’s situation is unique, a qualified professional should always be consulted before making any financial decisions. Investopedia makes no representations or warranties as to the accuracy or timeliness of the information contained herein.

Источник

Julie Bang / Investopedia


Bitcoin (BTC) is a cryptocurrency, a virtual currency designed to act as money and a form of payment outside the control of any one person, group, or entity, thus removing the need for third-party involvement in financial transactions. It is rewarded to blockchain miners for the work done to verify transactions and can be purchased on several exchanges.

Bitcoin was introduced to the public in 2009 by an anonymous developer or group of developers using the name Satoshi Nakamoto.

It has since become the most well-known cryptocurrency in the world. Its popularity has inspired the development of many other cryptocurrencies. These competitors either attempt to replace it as a payment system or are used as utility or security tokens in other blockchains and emerging financial technologies.

Learn more about the cryptocurrency that started it all—the history behind it, how it works, how to get it, and what it can be used for.

Key Takeaways

  • Launched in 2009, Bitcoin is the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
  • Unlike fiat currency, Bitcoin is created, distributed, traded, and stored using a decentralized ledger system known as a blockchain.
  • Bitcoin and its ledger are secured by proof-of-work (PoW) consensus, which is also the «mining» process that introduces new bitcoins into the system.
  • Bitcoin can be purchased via various cryptocurrency exchanges.
  • Bitcoin’s history as a store of value has been turbulent; it has gone through several boom and bust cycles over its relatively short lifespan.
  • As the first decentralized virtual currency to meet widespread popularity and success, Bitcoin has inspired a host of other cryptocurrencies in its wake.

What Is Bitcoin

Understanding Bitcoin

In August 2008, the domain name Bitcoin.org was registered. Today, at least, this domain is WhoisGuard Protected, meaning the identity of the person who registered it is not public information.

In October 2008, a person or group using the false name Satoshi Nakamoto announced the Cryptography Mailing List at metzdowd.com: «I’ve been working on a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.» This now-famous white paper published on Bitcoin.org, entitled «Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,» would become the Magna Carta for how Bitcoin operates today.

On Jan. 3, 2009, the first Bitcoin block was mined—Block 0. This is also known as the «genesis block» and contains the text: «The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks,» perhaps proof that the block was mined on or after that date, and maybe also as relevant political commentary.

Bitcoin rewards are halved every 210,000 blocks. For example, the block reward was 50 new bitcoins in 2009. On May 11, 2020, the third halving occurred, bringing the reward for each block discovery down to 6.25 bitcoins.

One bitcoin is divisible to eight decimal places (100 millionths of one bitcoin), and this smallest unit is referred to as a satoshi. If necessary, and if the participating miners accept the change, Bitcoin could eventually be made divisible to even more decimal places.

Bitcoin, as a form of digital currency, isn’t too complicated to understand. For example, if you own a bitcoin, you can use your cryptocurrency wallet to send smaller portions of that bitcoin as payment for goods or services. However, it becomes very complex when you try to understand how it works.

On Jan. 8, 2009, the first version of the Bitcoin software was announced to the Cryptography Mailing List, and on Jan. 9, 2009, Block 1 was mined, and Bitcoin mining commenced in earnest.

Bitcoin’s Blockchain Technology

Cryptocurrencies are part of a blockchain and the network required to power it. A blockchain is a distributed ledger, a shared database that stores data. Data within the blockchain is secured by encryption methods.

When a transaction takes place on the blockchain, information from the previous block is copied to a new block with the new data, encrypted, and the transaction is verified by validators—called miners—in the network. When a transaction is verified, a new block is opened, and a Bitcoin is created and given as a reward to the miner(s) who verified the data within the block—they are then free to use it, hold it, or sell it.

Bitcoin uses the SHA-256 hashing algorithm to encrypt the data stored in the blocks on the blockchain. Simply put, transaction data stored in a block is encrypted into a 256-bit hexadecimal number. That number contains all of the transaction data and information linked to the blocks before that block.

Data linked between blocks is what led to the ledger being called a blockchain.

Transactions are placed into a queue to be validated by miners within the network. Miners in the Bitcoin blockchain network all attempt to verify the same transaction simultaneously. The mining software and hardware work to solve the nonce, a four-byte number included in the block header that miners are attempting to solve.

The block header is hashed, or randomly regenerated by a miner repeatedly until it meets a target number specified by the blockchain. The block header is «solved,» and a new block is created for more transactions to be encrypted and verified.

How to Mine Bitcoin

A variety of hardware and software can be used to mine Bitcoin. When Bitcoin was first released, it was possible to mine it competitively on a personal computer; however, as it became more popular, more miners joined the network, which lowered the chances of being the one to solve the hash. You can still use your personal computer as a miner if it has newer hardware, but the chances of solving a hash individually are minuscule.

This is because you’re competing with a network of miners that generate around 220 quintillion hashes (220 exa hashes) per second. Machines, called Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), have been built specifically for mining—can generate around 255 trillion hashes per second. In contrast, a computer with the latest hardware hashes around 100 mega hashes per second (100 million).

To successfully become a Bitcoin miner, you have several options. You can use your existing personal computer to use mining software compatible with Bitcoin and join a mining pool. Mining pools are groups of miners that combine their computational power to compete with the large ASIC mining farms.

You increase your chances of being rewarded by joining a pool, but rewards are significantly decreased because they are shared.

If you have the financial means, you could also purchase an ASIC miner. You can generally find a new one for around $20,000, but used ones are also sold by miners as they upgrade their systems. There are some significant costs such as electricity and cooling to consider if you purchase one or more ASICs.

There are several mining programs to choose from and many pools you can join. Two of the most well-known programs are CGMiner and BFGMiner. When choosing a pool, it’s important to make sure you find out how they pay out rewards, what any fees might be, and read some mining pool reviews.

How Do You Buy Bitcoin?

If you don’t want to mine bitcoin, it can be bought using a cryptocurrency exchange. Most people will not be able to purchase an entire BTC because of its price, but you can buy portions of BTC on these exchanges in fiat currency like U.S. dollars. For example, you can buy bitcoin on Coinbase by creating an account and funding it. You can fund your account using your bank account, credit card, or debit card. The following video explains more about buying bitcoin.

How to Buy Bitcoin

How Is Bitcoin Used?

Bitcoin was initially designed and released as a peer-to-peer payment method. However, its use cases are growing due to its increasing value and competition from other blockchains and cryptocurrencies.

Payment

To use your Bitcoin, you need to have a cryptocurrency wallet. Wallets hold the private keys to the bitcoin you own, which need to be entered when you’re conducting a transaction. Bitcoin is accepted as a means of payment for goods and services at many merchants, retailers, and stores.

Brick-and-mortar stores that accept cryptocurrencies will generally display a sign that says “Bitcoin Accepted Here”; the transactions can be handled with the requisite hardware terminal or wallet address through QR codes and touchscreen apps. An online business can easily accept Bitcoin by adding this payment option to its other online payment options: credit cards, PayPal, etc.

El Salvador became the first country to officially adopt Bitcoin as legal tender in June 2021.

Investing and Speculating

Investors and speculators became interested in Bitcoin as it grew in popularity. Between 2009 and 2017, cryptocurrency exchanges emerged that facilitated bitcoin sales and purchases. Prices began to rise, and demand slowly grew until 2017, when its price broke $1,000. Many people believed Bitcoin prices would keep climbing and began buying them to hold. Traders began using cryptocurrency exchanges to make short-term trades, and the market took off.

In 2022, Bitcoin’s price came crashing down. In March 2022, it was as high as $47,454 and as of November 2022, it is $15,731. The drop in Bitcoin is partly due to larger market turmoil related to inflation, rising interest rates, supply chain issues from Covid, and the war in Ukraine. Additionally, some important tokens have crashed in the crypto world, as well as one of the important exchanges, which has raised concerns about the stability of digital currencies.

Risks of Investing in Bitcoin

Speculative investors have been drawn to Bitcoin after its rapid price appreciation in recent years. Bitcoin had a price of $7,167.52 on Dec. 31, 2019, and a year later, it had appreciated more than 300% to $28,984.98. It continued to surge in the first half of 2021, trading at a record high of $68,990 in November 2021—it then fell over the next few months to hover around $40,000. As mentioned above, in early 2022, the price started to drop and has continued to do so for most of 2022.

Bitcoin’s all-time high price is $68,990, reached in November 2021.

Thus, many people purchase Bitcoin for its investment value rather than its ability to act as a medium of exchange. However, the lack of guaranteed value and its digital nature means its purchase and use carry several inherent risks. For example, many investor alerts have been issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) regarding Bitcoin investing.

  • Regulatory risk: The lack of uniform regulations about Bitcoin (and other virtual currencies) raises questions over their longevity, liquidity, and universality.
  • Security risk: Most individuals who own and use Bitcoin have not acquired their tokens through mining operations. Rather, they buy and sell Bitcoin and other digital currencies on popular online markets, known as cryptocurrency exchanges. Bitcoin exchanges are entirely digital and—as with any virtual system—are at risk from hackers, malware, and operational glitches.
  • Insurance risk: Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are not insured through the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) or the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Some exchanges provide insurance through third parties. In 2019, prime dealer and trading platform SFOX announced it would be able to offer Bitcoin investors FDIC insurance, but only for the portion of transactions involving cash.
  • Fraud risk: Even with the security measures inherent within a blockchain, there are still opportunities for fraudulent activity. For instance, in July 2013, the SEC brought legal action against an operator of a Bitcoin-related Ponzi scheme.

  • Market risk: As with any investment, Bitcoin values can fluctuate. Indeed, the value of the currency has seen wild swings in price over its short existence. Subject to high-volume buying and selling on exchanges, it is highly sensitive to any newsworthy events. According to the CFPB, the price of Bitcoin fell by 61% in a single day in 2013, while the one-day price drop record in 2014 was as big as 80%.

Regulating Bitcoin

Like with any new technology, the attempts at regulating Bitcoin have been difficult. The current Biden administration seeks to impose regulations around Bitcoin, but at the same time walks a tightrope in trying not to throttle a growing and economically beneficial industry.

Biden has stated he will seek to prevent the illegal use of Bitcoin but also support its development. The U.S. has particularly been focused on regulating crypto and its criminal usage overseas, such as sanctioning cryptocurrency exchanges and individual cryptocurrency wallets and recovering crypto payments made to criminals. There have also been calls for the U.S. to develop a central bank digital currency (CBDC) to appropriately direct these sanctions.

As the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency world is emerging, so will the regulation, which will see many changes and laws over time.

How Long Does It Take to Mine One Bitcoin?

It takes an average of 10 minutes for the mining network to validate a block and create the reward. The Bitcoin reward is 6.25 BTC per block. This works out to be about 100 seconds for 1 BTC to be mined.

Is Bitcoin a Good Investment?

Bitcoin has a short investing history filled with very volatile prices. Whether it is a good investment depends on your financial profile, investing portfolio, risk tolerance, and investing goals. You should always consult a financial professional for advice before investing in cryptocurrency to ensure it is right for your circumstances.

How Does Bitcoin Make Money?

The Bitcoin network of miners makes money from Bitcoin by successfully validating blocks and being rewarded. Bitcoins are exchangeable for fiat currency via cryptocurrency exchanges and can be used to make purchases from merchants and retailers that accept them. Investors and speculators can make money from buying and selling bitcoins.

How Much Is $1 Bitcoin in U.S. Dollars?

As of Nov. 22, 2022, $1 Bitcoin is equal to $15,766 U.S. dollars.

How Many Bitcoins Are Left?

The total number of Bitcoins in existence is 19,214,106.25. The number of Bitcoins left to be mined is 1,785,893.8 as of Nov. 22, 2022.

The Bottom Line

Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency and is intended to be used as a form of payment outside of legal tender. Since its introduction in 2009, Bitcoin’s popularity has surged and its uses expanded, resulting in the creation of many new competitor cryptocurrencies.

Though the process of generating Bitcoin is complex, investing in it is more straightforward. Investors and speculators can buy and sell Bitcoin on crypto exchanges. As with any investment, particularly one as new and volatile as Bitcoin, investors should carefully consider if Bitcoin is the right investment for them.

Investing in cryptocurrencies and other Initial Coin Offerings (“ICOs”) is highly risky and speculative, and this article is not a recommendation by Investopedia or the writer to invest in cryptocurrencies or other ICOs. Since each individual’s situation is unique, a qualified professional should always be consulted before making any financial decisions. Investopedia makes no representations or warranties as to the accuracy or timeliness of the information contained herein.

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Что такое биткоин

Курс биткоина к рублю/доллару текущий:

Не раз натыкался на статьи, где такое понятие как «bitcoin» описывают очень заумными научными терминами, что новичок может просто схватиться за голову, и больше не продолжать вникать в эту тему. На самом деле ничего сложного тут нету, и в данной статье я максимально простыми словами объясню Вам, что такое биткоин, как он работает, кто его создал и т.д. Безусловно, начиная работу с криптовалютой, первым делом необходимо узнать о ее отце.

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Что такое биткоин простыми словами?

Биткоин (англ. Bitcoin, сокращенно «BTC«) — это первая в мире цифровая валюта (криптовалюта), созданная в 2009 году, которая существует исключительно в интернете в виде программного кода, не имеет эмиссионного центра, и не подвластна регуляторам в лице государственных органов. Простыми словами, биткоин — это современный аналог бумажным деньгам, только существующий в интернете, и создающий предпосылки для становления современного финансового будущего всего мира.

Простым языком, Bitcoin призван обеспечить свободу финансовых отношений между людьми во всем мире. Это полностью децентрализованная цифровая валюта, которую невозможно заблокировать, арестовать, либо осуществлять над ней какой-либо иной контроль, как над обычными фиатными деньгами. Такая невозможность объясняется тем, что биткоином никто не управляет, как например государства и банки управляют обычной фиатной валютой (доллары, евро и т.д.). Как Вы наверно догадываетесь, те же доллары или рубли могут исчезнуть хоть завтра, стоит лишь этого захотеть властям, и итогом будет потеря всех Ваших сбережений. В случае с биткоином такого не случится.

Владеть биткоином может каждый человек, даже ребенок, и для его покупки не нужно раскрывать свои данные (Ф.И.О., адрес проживания и т.д.), как этого требуют популярные платежные системы, такие как WebMoney, Яндекс-Деньги, AdvCash и т.д. Осуществляя транзакции с BTC, Вы делаете это сами. Для того чтобы, переслать битки в другую страну, Вам не нужны никакие посредники в виде банков, обменников и т.д. Все операции проводятся напрямую между пользователями bitcoin, и все этого благодаря децентрализации, которая обеспечивается блокчейн-системой, о которой мы поговорим далее. Также стоит отметить, что любые проводимые в сети биткоин транзакции имеют необратимый характер, т.е. их нельзя отменить.

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Сейчас существует множество сервисов, позволяющих любому желающему быстро и просто купить, продать, хранить и отправить биткоины другому человеку. Один из примеров, который заключает в себе все эти возможности — Matbea. Это кошелек-обменник, работающий уже достаточно долгий срок — с 2014 года. После регистрации как на любом обычном сайте, пользователь получает там кошельки для нескольких криптовалют, включая биткоин. На данный кошелек можно принять криптовалюту, сообщив отправителю адрес. 

С кошелька легко отправить монеты, используя понятный веб-интерфейс или мобильное приложение Matbea.

ReceiveCrypto

Возможен выбор приоритета транзакции: низкий, средний, высокий. Чем выше приоритет, тем быстрее криптовалюта дойдет до получателя. Но и тем больше будет комиссия за ее проведение. Комиссию берет не сам сервис, а сеть блокчейна, речь о котором пойдет далее.

Обменник же вкладывает свою комиссию в разницу курсов покупки и продажи криптовалют. Все, как и в обычном валютном обменнике. 

Пополнение баланса в Matbea, как и вывод фиатных средств, возможно выполнить через систему Peer-to-Peer (P2P), где комиссию взимает мерчант — обычный человек, прошедший расширенную верификацию и помогающий проведению финансовых операций на площадке.

В обменнике предлагаются к покупке практически все самые популярные монеты с самой высокой капитализацией.

В случае, если у пользователя возникнут вопросы, то команда подготовила подробную видеоинструкцию.

Bitcoin — не единственная криптовалюта. В настоящее время создано и запущено огромное количество других цифровых монет, которые с успехом используются, например Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash, ZCash, Ripple и т.д.

Принцип работы биткоина

Криптовалюта биткоин функционирует на основе блокчейн-технологии. Простыми словами, блокчейн — это полностью публичный программный код, представляющий собой цепочку блоков, которые содержат информацию о проведенных транзакциях. Это своего рода реестр (база данных), где хранится полностью вся информация о проведенных с биткоином финансовых операциях с 2009 года. Данная база постоянно обновляется, и является общедоступной. Причем в ней содержаться только данные о том, какие суммы BTC и на какие кошельки были отправлены. Однако владельцы этих кошельков никому неизвестны.

Каждый блок хранит информацию о проведенных транзакциях с биткоином в момент его формирования, а также информацию о предыдущих блоках. Каждая транзакция, перед ее помещением в блок, должна быть подтверждена всеми пользователями сети. Т.е. все компьютеры и телефоны, на которых установлены биткоин кошельки, должны синхронизироваться между собой. Как только блок заполняется необходимым количеством транзакций, происходит формирование нового блока.

цепочка блоков график биткоина

Блоки генерируются посредством компьютерных мощностей, т.к. для этой процедуры нужно решать математические, или можно сказать хакерские задачи. Для того чтобы добыть блок, нужно подобрать пароль к заданному алгоритмом биткоина хэшу. У каждого блока свой хэш, и его необходимо решить, чтобы блок полностью сформировался. Блокчейн bitcoin устроен таким образом, что каждый новый блок добыть сложнее, чем предыдущий, потому как усложняются задачи, и для этого нужны огромные мощности компьютеров.

Генерация новых блоков необходима не только для хранения информации о транзакциях, но также и для создания новых цифровых монет, т.е. биткоинов. Вы, да и любой другой человек, который обладает более менее производительным компьютером, ноутбуком или телефоном, может поучаствовать в формировании блоков, а соответственно и в добыче биткоинов совместно с другими людьми. Люди которые занимаются добычей биткоина, или другой криптовалюты, с помощью мощностей своего компьютера, называются майнерами, а сам процесс добычи называется майнингом криптовалют. После того, как майнеры добудут новый блок, он добавляется в основную цепочку блоков, а сами майнеры получают за это вознаграждение в виде монет — BTC.

В настоящее время майнингом занимается огромное количество людей по всему миру. Кто-то майнит с помощью стандартных компьютеров, начиненных мощными выдеокартами, а кто-то строит, так называемые майнинговые фермы, которые представляют собой десятки, сотни или тысячи видеокарт, а также иного компьютерного оборудования, которые подключены и соединены между собой, с целью добычи биткоина либо иных криптовалют.

майнинг биткоина

Таким образом, майнеры, добывая блоки, и поддерживая работу сети bitcoin, зарабатывают эти самые биткоины, добывая и производя их на свет. Протоколом биткоина запрограммированно, что его добыча ограничена 21 млн. BTC. Т.е., всего может быть добыто именно такое количество BTC, и никак не больше. На момент написания статьи уже добыто около 17 млн. BTC, которые находятся в обороте. Однако последний биткоин будет добыт еще очень не скоро. По некоторым прогнозам, этот произойдет примерно в 2140 году. Как я уже говорил, добыча усложняется, а это приведет к тому, что последний 1% BTC будет добываться примерно 100 лет.

Хранение монет осуществляется на специальных биткоин-кошельках, доступ к которым осуществляется с помощью ключей (набор специальных символов). Утеря данного ключа приведет к полной потере доступа к кошельку, и невозможности восстановить средства, которые там хранились. В настоящее время таких случаев очень много, и таким образом существует огромное количество биткоинов, которые утеряны навсегда.

Если из всего, что я написал выше, Вам все же ничего не понятно, то рекомендую посмотреть это видео, где самыми простыми словами объясняется что такое биткоин, и как он вообще работает.

Кто и когда создал биткоин?

Bitcoin был создан довольно давно, а именно в 2009 году. Его разработчик не раскрылся, и все что о нем известно, это псевдоним Сатоши Накамото, которым он себя именовал. И до сих пор никакой информации о нем нет, и никто не знает что это за человек.

Все начиналось с того, что 31.10.2008 на одном из интернет-ресурсов, посвященном криптографии, неизвестным человеком было выпущена статья, в которой была описана идея создания первой в мире цифровой валюты, и презентована концепция созданной им криптовалюты биткоин. Данная статья не получила большой огласки, да и люди не восприняли эту разработку за что-то стоящее. Сам автор написал в своем профиле на сайте, что его зовут Сатоши Накамото, что по национальности он японец, и что он живет именно в Японии. Также он указал свой возраст, а именно 37 лет.

Через несколько месяцев, а именно 03.01.2009 Накамото произвел запуск в интернете протокола биткоина, а также первую версию его кошелька. Именно эта дата считается датой рождения отца криптовалют.

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Почему цена биткоина растет?

На момент написания статьи стоимость 1 BTC = около 9 500$, а в декабре 2017 года его цена достигала 19 000$. Причем его первоначальная цена в 2009 году составляла всего 0.008$. Анализируя это информацию, большинство людей задаются вопросом: «А почему биткоины так растут в цене, ведь по сути они ничем не обеспечены?». Да, это так, они ничем не обеспечены, однако есть ряд причин, по которым цена BTC растет бешеными темпами. Рассмотрим их подробнее:

График стоимости Биткоина

курс биткоина

  • Идея. Помимо того, что Bitcoin — это первая в мире цифровая валюта, он также несет в себе новую технологию, которая называется блокчейн. Как оказалось данная технология может применяться практически во всех сферах жизнедеятельности, и сделать мир намного лучше, удобнее и современнее. Поэтому блокчейн проекты активно внедряются в жизнь, и с каждым годом это внедрение приобретает все большие и большие масштабы. Возьмем в пример, проводимые в настоящее время ICO, запуск криптостартапов, а также использование блокчейн технологии непосредственно государственными органами. Программный код биткоина является своего рода базой для этих разработок, поэтому все это влияет на стоимость отца криптовалют.
  • Спрос. Это один из главных факторов, который влияет на цену биткоина. Чем больше людей будет покупать монеты, тем выше будет расти их цена. Люди видят, что биткоин — это новый вид денег, который имеет потенциал, что он пользуется большим спросом среди людей, и что на этом есть возможность неплохо заработать, в том числе и на спекуляциях, в результате чего тоже инвестируют свои деньги в BTC. Пока в него будут вливаться новые деньги, его цена будет расти также как и общая капитализация. Особенно повышает спрос возможность уходить от уплаты налогов с помощью данной криптовалюты, а также свободное независимое распоряжение своими средствами. Уменьшение спроса наоборот приводит к снижению стоимости данной криптовалюты.
  • Ажиотаж. Этот фактор касается предыдущего пункта, и заключается в том, что как только цена биткоина резко идет вверх, делая непомерные иксы, это вызывает ажиотаж среди людей, которые слабо разбираются в этой сфере. Они тут же начинают вкладывать огромные деньги в данную монету, испытывая жажду прибыли, и тем самым курс битка растет еще активнее. Когда они это делают, они не думают о рисках, последствиях, и даже не обращают внимание на то, что курс монеты находится на пике. После того, как курс BTC, резко начинает падать, люди поддаются панике, и распродают свои монеты, думая что цена опустится до нуля. Как итог, они теряют часть вложенных денег, оставляя их на рынке. И так продолжается на каждом пиковом росте цены, что несомненно подпитывает капитализацию данной криптовалюты.
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  • Ограниченное предложение. Как я уже говорил, всего будет добыто максимум 21 млн монет, и не больше данной суммы. Таким образом, мы видим, что имеется дефицит данной криптовалюты, который достигнет своего максимума после добычи последнего биткоина. Как Вы наверно знаете, любой дефицитный товар имеет высокую цену, и большой интерес со стороны покупателей. То же самое и с биткоином, с каждой новой добытой монетой, его курс будет расти, так как будет увеличиваться его дефицит.
  • Гос. позиция и новостной фон. Активный рост цены BTC может быть результатом того, что вышла какая-нибудь положительная новость, его касающаяся. К примеру, это может быть добавление монеты на какую-нибудь криптовалютную биржу, узаконивание биткоина в какой-нибудь стране, внесение обновлений в программный код, которые улучшают его работу, использование bitcoin различными известными компаниями в своей работе и т.д. Такого рода новости несомненно приводят к становлению или укреплению бычьего тренда. Конечно же не все новости положительно влияют на bitcoin. Например, различного рода запреты от лица государств могут очень негативно сказаться на курсе, и значительно обвалить цену монеты.
  • Криминал. Большой спрос, и как следствие повышение курса, вызывает привлекательность биткоина с точки зрения криминалитета. Преступники зачастую используют данную криптовалюту, как инструмент для отмывания денег, финансирования терроризма, реализации наркотиков, оружия и других запрещенных законом товаров. Однако в последнее время, в таких делах все чаще начинают использовать более анонимные криптовалюты, такие как Monero, ZCash и др.

роджер вер биткоин миллиардер

Биткоин сделал долларовыми миллионерами многих людей. В основном это те люди, которые поверили в данную криптовалюту в самом начале. Т.е., если бы Вы вложили в bitcoin хотя бы 100$ в 2010 году, когда 1BTC стоил 0.1$, то сейчас Вы бы уже имели состояние примерно в 10 млн долларов. Отличный пример, как ничтожно маленькая инвестиция смогла бы сделать Вас сказочно богатым.

Преимущества биткоина

Безусловно, bitcoin — это прежде всего отец криптовалют, и он всегда будет востребованным. Кроме того, это новый вид денег, которые имеют огромный потенциал в будущем, и не только в финансовом плане. Давайте разберемся в ключевых преимуществах биткоина, и разложим по пунктам, почему он лучше обычных денег.

преимущества биткоина

  • Независимость и свобода платежей. Bitcoin никто не контролирует, и платежная сеть работает без посредников. Для того, чтобы перевести деньги (BTC) куда бы то ни было (хоть человеку на другой конец света), нет необходимости идти в банк в рабочее время, стоять в очереди, иногда платить довольно большие комиссии за переводы, а затем еще и ждать несколько дней пока деньги переведутся. Вы можете перевести любое количество биткоинов, в любое время дня и ночи, кому-угодно, с помощь своего компьютера. Получатель чаще всего получит перевод в течение часа, но бывают ситуации, когда перевод поступит намного быстрее, или наоборот медленнее. Все зависит от загруженности самой сети.  И самое главное никаких лимитов на проводимые платежи.
  • Маленькие комиссии + самостоятельная регулировка их размеров. За любой перевод монет, сеть биткоина взимает определенную комиссию, которая как правила имеет совсем небольшие размеры. Самое интересное, что размер комиссии не зависит от суммы отправляемых монет. В основном, за перевод больших сумм Вы будете платить намного меньше, чем за переводы маленьких сумм. Это сделано с целью борьбы с огромным количеством пустых, спамных переводов, которые только засоряют саму сеть. В некоторых случаях комиссия и вовсе может равняться 0. Также стоит обратить внимание на то, что при приеме bitcoin-платежей комиссии не взимаются. За то что Вы пользуетесь платежной сетью BTC, Вы тоже ничего не платите. А особенно интересен тот факт, что размер комиссии Вы можете устанавливать сами лично. Чем больше установите, тем приоритетнее будет Ваша транзакция, и тем быстрее пройдет платеж.
  • Безопасность. Блокчейн биткоина невозможно взломать. Программный код данной монеты написан можно сказать величайшим программистом, который предусмотрел любые попытки атак на платежную сеть. Сами же кошельки пользователей все же можно взломать, однако это можно сделать только лишь одним способом, а именно заполучив ключи от  кошелька. Таким образом, взломам подвергаются только самые невнимательные пользователи, которые не соблюдают элементарные меры безопасности, касаемые хранения этих ключей. Также многие интернет-сервисы (биржи, онлайн-кошельки, и т.д.) имеют практику хранения ключей в своих базах данных, и при взломе данных сервисов, опасности подвергаются и средства пользователей. Также стоит отметить, что Ваши биткоины являются исключительно Вашими. Никакой государственный орган не сможет арестовать Ваши деньги, или просто заполучить доступ к Вашему кошельку, как это часто случается с банковскими счетами.
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  • Конфиденциальность. Транзакции с BTC происходят без раскрытия данных об отправителе и получателе. Все что доступно для посторонних глаз, это размер переводимых средств, а также номера кошельков, участвующих в транзакции людей. Таким образом, Вы не раскрываете данные о том, как Вас зовут, где Вы живете, какого Вы года рождения и т.д. Bitcoin обладает некой анонимностью пользователей, однако не 100%-й. Об этом Вы можете почитать в следующем части статьи.
  •  Свободное ценообразование. Никто не устанавливает курс биткоина по отношению к фиатным деньгам. Его стоимость формируется исходя из покупательской активности (спроса) и предложения, а также исходя из иных факторов.
  • Удобства оборота. Не смотря на то, что цена одной монеты имеет очень большую стоимость, она отлично делится на мелкие части (до 8 знаков после запятой) для удобства использования всеми слоями населения, и для проведения платежей любых размеров. Подробнее о том на сколько частей делится биткоин читайте по ссылке.
  • Прозрачность. Платежная сеть BTC максимально прозрачна, так как весь ее код размещен в свободном доступе в интернете, и всегда доступна информация о всех произведенных транзакциях в сети, начиная с 2009 года.

Анонимный ли bitcoin?

анонимность биткоина

Большинство людей уверены, что биткоин — это полностью анонимная криптовалюта. Однако это не совсем так. Спецслужбы могут раскрыть Вашу личность, если хорошо постараются. Дело в том, что в общем блокчейн биткоина предусматривает частичную анонимность владельцев монет. Для того, чтобы установить bitcoin-кошелек, хранить и пользоваться монетами, не нужно раскрывать, и где-то указывать свои личные данные. Однако, информация о транзакциях, суммах переводимых средств, дате и времени любых операций с монетами полностью открыта. Т.е. сам блокчейн BTC полностью публичен, так как его код находится в открытом доступе, и его может посмотреть и проанализировать любой человек.

Назревает вопрос, как же можно идентифицировать того или иного пользователя, имея только данные о производимых транзакциях?

Вообщем-то это сделать сложновато. Теоретически можно группировать отдельные транзакции и определять их относимость к одному и тому же человеку. После того, как группа транзакций привела к одному пользователю, остается раскрыть его личность, что сделать порой бывает невозможно, если пользователь знает как добиться максимальной анонимности, и все делает для этого.  Однако ситуация катастрофически усугубляется, когда Вы пользуетесь посторонними сайтами и сервисами. Т.е., допустим, Вы купили биткоины в каком-либо обменнике, на криптовалютной бирже, или еще где-нибудь. Если для проведения этой операции Вам пришлось раскрыть свои личные данные, или Вы совершали покупку с банковской карты, или на бирже, которая регулируется различными контролирующими органами, то уровень Вашей анонимности резко снижается. Сразу же появляется возможность легко выйти на Ваш след.

Конечно же, протокол биткоина предусматривает некоторые фишки, которые запутывают следы, например постоянная смена биткоин-адресов. Т.е., для каждой последующей транзакции, bitcoin-кошелек генерирует новый адрес. Таким образом, уже становится сложнее деанонимизировать Вас, но все равно это в большинстве случаев не спасет.

В последнее время, на рынке криптовалют начали появляться монеты, которые обладают куда более лучшей конфиденциальностью, чем bitcoin, и которые изначально создавались с целью обеспечения полной анонимности для пользователей. К таким монетам можно отнести к примеру ZCash, Monero, Dash, SmartCoin и некоторые другие.

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Биткоин — это финансовая пирамида?

Ответ на этот вопрос: «нет, нет и еще раз нет».

Как Вы наверно знаете, финансовые пирамиды представляют собой инвестиционные программы, в которых выплата дохода уже имеющимся вкладчикам, производится за счет денег новых вкладчиков. Также в таких проектах есть руководство, извлекающее прибыль из этой деятельности, которая в свою очередь достается им мошенническим путем (они ведь привлекают новых вкладчиков сказками о прибыльном бизнесе, а на самом деле их целью является банальное обогащение за счет этих же вкладчиков). Финансовые пирамиды не ведут какой-либо бизнес, и не производят какие-либо товары, услуги и иные ценности. Таким образом, их деятельность ведется вхолостую.

Пирамиды еще зачастую называют хайп-проектами. Пример пирамиды: компания «МММ», которую организовал всем известный Мавроди, и где свои деньги потеряли огромное количество вкладчиков.

Анализируя биткоин на возможную пирамидальную схему работы, следует обратить внимание на несколько факторов, которые полностью исключают такое развитие событий:

  • Биткоин — это разработка, которая имеет явную ценность. Люди вкладывают в него деньги не просто так. BTC является первой в мире цифровой валютой, которая внесла новый виток развития в цифровую экономику, да и вообще в развитие общества и государства в целом. Финансовая пирамида же ничего ценного из себя не представляет, и является обычным переливанием денег туда сюда.
  • К одному из признаков финансовой пирамиды относится наличие «руководителей-мошенников», которые извлекают из этого всего прибыль, и могут в любой момент закрыть проект. В случает с биткоином, таких руководителей не существует. Платежную сеть невозможно закрыть, и ей никто не управляет. Пользователи проводят транзакции между собой, без участия каких-либо посредников.
  • Также необходимо понимать, что bitcoin сам по себе не запрограммирован на осуществление каких-либо обязательств перед пользователями, как это происходит в финансовых пирамидах. Покупая монеты, Вы должны осознавать риски, и понимать что bitcoin никому ничего не должен, а его цена зависит от самих пользователей, его дефицита, а также в целом от восприятия технологии мировым сообществом.

Таким образом, Вы сами убедились что биткоин не соответствует признакам хайпа либо финансовой пирамиды.

Цена биткоина формируется, как я уже говорил, исходя исходя из многих факторов, главным из которых является спрос и предложение между участниками рынка.

Есть ли у биткоина будущее?

Итак, мы разобрались что такое биткоин, и ответили на ряд вопросов, посвященных ему. Теперь в заключении давайте поразмышляем о том, имеет ли данная монета свое место в мире, а соответственно и перспективное будущее.

Момент создания и запуска биткоина можно сравнить с моментом перехода на новый исторический этап экономического развития. И в действительности это так. BTC — это разработка гениального человека, которая кардинальным образом изменит мир. Уже сейчас данная монета имеет невероятно большую стоимость, которая постоянно увеличивается. Данная цифровая валюта начинает уживаться в обществе, с каждым годом доказывая свою полезность на деле. Если до 2013 года про bitcoin мало кто знал, и было мало верующих в его истинную ценность, то в последующем и до настоящего времени все кардинальным образом изменилось.

будущее bitoin

С тех времен, специально для покупки и продажи биткоинов и др. криптовалюты, а также для спекуляций монетами, были созданы криптовалютные биржи (Binance, Exmo, Polonix и т.д.), численность которых с каждым годом увеличивается. Это положительно влияет на развитие монеты. Во-первых, это простой способ купить BTC, а во-вторых, это возможность участвовать в торгах.

Как только цена данной криптовалюты начала чертить сногсшитабательный график, управляющая элита начала видеть некую угрозу, которую якобы несет bitcoin для общества и экономики, так как он стал активно использоваться преступниками для отмывания средств, финансирования терроризма, и других противоправных деяний. Как выяснилось, биткоин практически невозможно контролировать. Анонимные транзакции позволяют людям уклоняться от уплаты налогов, и несут много других проблем. Кроме того, банковский сектор очень недоволен популярностью биткоина, ведь в случае полного перехода на расчеты в BTC, банки, как таковые, будут уже не нужны. Ввиду этого, на государственных уровнях рассматривали вопрос о возможном полном запрете BTC. Однако, все пришли к выводу, что это сделать практически невозможно, и что надо принять эту технологию, и искать методы ее регулирования.

В итоге, bitcoin постепенно начал признаваться государствами как законное платежное средство. В настоящее время активно разрабатывается законодательство, которое будет регулировать обращение биткоина в современной экономике. Довольно много стран мира пошли именно по этому пути (Япония, Америка, Беларусь, Эстония и т.д.). Некоторая часть стран, все еще находится «в раздумии», а некоторые государства законодательно запретили использование биткоина (например, Индия). Однако безусловно, время вынудит всех пойти на шаг регуляции, нежели запрета, тем более, что многие страны уже встали на этот путь. Технология bitcoin, как и криптовалют в целом, не стоит на месте, и развивается семимильными шагами. Миру просто придется принять этот факт.

Уже сейчас в интернете можно найти интернет-магазины, где товары можно покупать за биткоины. Известно довольно много случаев приобретения за биткоины дорогого имущества (машины, дома, квартиры и т.д.). В некоторых странах даже существуют магазины, в которых можно расплачиваться биткоином (например, Япония). Практикуется установка на улицах криптоматов, которые позволяют любому человеку без особых усилий подойти, и приобрести монеты. Технология блокчейн, отцом которой является bitcoin, активно используется в современной экономике. Создаются перспективные проекты, главным принципом которых является децентрализация. Многие государственные органы начинают внедрять эту технологию в государственные процессы, ведь она может сделать мир лучше.

Вообщем, постепенно bitcoin все чаще встречается в повседневном мире, и это только начало. Будущее у данной криптовалюты есть, и оно будет великим.

Рейтинг криптобирж 2022 года

торговая комиссия

0.02-0.1%

инструменты

деривативы, стейкинг

торговая комиссия

0.07-0.2%

инструменты

деривативы, стейкинг

4

инструменты

robo, майнинг, игры

Источник

Bitcoin. Это слово, которое когда-то просто обсуждалось как академическая идея среди энтузиастов технологий, затем стало тихим упоминанием среди правоохранительных органов, занимающихся онлайн-торговлей наркотиками, — и совсем недавно это последнее увлечение для тех, кто хочет быстро заработать. Итак, что же такое биткоин?

Что такое биткоин - очень кратко и детально. Значение биткоина 1

Что такое биткоин

Биткоин — это цифровая валюта (пишется «биткоин» в нижнем регистре или сокращенно BTC), а технология blockchain (прописная «биткоин» в верхнем регистре, также известная как сеть биткоинов). Для целей этой страницы мы будем говорить о биткоине (BTC) валюте.

Биткоин, как и стандартные деньги, является средством обмена. Он имеет ценность, может быть конвертирован в песо и может использоваться для покупки товаров и услуг у торговцев.

Вот некоторые общие характеристики биткоина:

  • Биткоин доступен. Любой, кто имеет доступ к Интернету, может сразу начать покупать или использовать биткоин. Все, что вам нужно, это биткойн-кошелек.
  • Биткоин глобальный. Биткоин, купленный на Филиппинах, такой же, как Биткоин, купленный в США, Израиле, Исландии, Аргентине или где-либо еще в мире.
  • Вы можете конвертировать песо в биткоин, а биткоин — в песо. Биткойн-услуги, такие как онлайн-обмены, одноранговые рынки и банкоматы с биткоинами, позволяют быстро изменить ваши песо в биткоин и так же легко изменить ваш биткоин обратно в песо.

Откуда они пришли?

Важно отметить, что Bitcoin Core не была первой попыткой создания цифровых денег в истории. В 1990-х годах несколько человек и группы пытались создать свои собственные «электронные деньги». Каждый из них потерпел неудачу, ведь они не были успешно реализованы или оказались централизованными. Только после того, как Накамото объединил все части головоломки, используя то, что его предшественники пытались построить, был создан протокол биткоинов Core.

Что такое биткоин - очень кратко и детально. Значение биткоина 2

Значение биткоина включает в себя следующее:

По сравнению со стандартными платежами по кредитным картам, биткойн-платежи, как правило, относительно дешевы из-за более низких транзакционных издержек. Служба платежей, такая как BitPay, взимает с продавцом плоскую комиссионную плату за 1%, по сравнению с 2% до 3%, начисленной службой обработки платежных карт fiat currency.

Биткойн-платежные услуги позволяют использовать систему оплаты без границ, которая обеспечивает беспрепятственную передачу биткоинов в любой сумме из любой точки мира через любой мобильный или компьютер на счет продавца в большом количестве стран в валюте, выбранной покупателем.

Биткойн-платежные услуги утверждают, что они поддерживают прозрачность высокодинамичных обменных курсов между биткоинами и валютой.

Используя такие услуги, коммерсант не только получает различные медийные средства для принятия глобальных платежей, но также получает надежную и аутентичную идентификацию в виртуальном мире криптоволокнов, что намного безопаснее, прозрачнее и надежнее для получения платежей.

Что такое биткоин - очень кратко и детально. Значение биткоина 3

Как работает платежная система

Чтобы отправить биткоин, вам нужен биткоин-кошелек, который позволяет хранить биткоин, отправлять биткоин или получать биткоин. Вам также нужен адрес биткоин-кошелька вашего получателя.

Предположим, вы хотите отправить биткоин другу. Чтобы начать транзакцию с биткоинами, вам просто нужно скопировать или сканировать адрес биткоин-кошелька вашего друга в свой интерфейс отправки биткоин-кошелька, а затем ввести сумму, которую вы хотите отправить. Как только вы нажмете кнопку «отправить», транзакция создается вашим кошельком и транслируется в сеть Bitcoin, где они получают подтверждение безопасности и целостности транзакций. Процесс выполняется так, независимо от местоположения отправителя и получателя.

Как только ваша транзакция будет проверена, биткоин группирует ее с другими транзакциями в «блок» и добавляют этот блок к блочной цепочке биткоинов — общий, публичный отчет всех транзакций биткоинов, когда-либо сделанных. После того как ваша транзакция будет добавлена в блок, ваш кошелек отправит вам подтверждение. Получатель затем получает биткоин в своем кошельке.

С биткоинами, как правило, нет необходимости в корреспондентской банковской деятельности. Каждый пользователь биткоинов находится в одной сети. Транзакции становятся возможными благодаря блок-цепям, которые, по сути, играют роль регулятора, надежного, организатора, коммуникатора и рекордера.

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