What is Bitcoin?

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Bitcoin is a digital currency created in January 2009. It follows the ideas set out in a whitepaper by the mysterious and pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. The identity of the person or persons who created the technology is still a mystery. Bitcoin offers the promise of lower transaction fees than traditional online payment mechanisms and, unlike government-issued currencies, it is operated by a decentralized authority.

Bitcoin is a type of cryptocurrency. There is no physical Bitcoin, only balances kept on a public ledger that everyone has transparent access to. All Bitcoin transactions are verified by a massive amount of computing power. Bitcoin is not issued or backed by any banks or governments, nor is an individual Bitcoin valuable as a commodity. Despite it not being legal tender in most parts of the world, bitcoin is very popular and has triggered the launch of hundreds of other cryptocurrencies, collectively referred to as altcoins. Bitcoin is commonly abbreviated as “BTC.”

Understanding Bitcoin

The Bitcoin system is a collection of computers (also referred to as “nodes” or “miners”) that all run bitcoin’s code and store its blockchain. Metaphorically, a blockchain can be thought of as a collection of blocks. In each block is a collection of transactions. Because all the computers running the blockchain have the same list of blocks and transactions, and can transparently see these new blocks being filled with new bitcoin transactions, no one can cheat the system.

Anyone—whether they run a Bitcoin “node” or not—can see these transactions occurring in real-time. To achieve a nefarious act, a bad actor would need to operate 51% of the computing power that makes up Bitcoin. Bitcoin has around 10,000 nodes, as of June 2021, and this number is growing, making such an attack quite unlikely.

But if an attack were to happen, Bitcoin miners—the people who take part in the Bitcoin network with their computers—would likely fork to a new blockchain, making the effort the bad actor put forth to achieve the attack a waste.

Source: Investopedia

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