What is Bitcoin?

The bitcoin (BTC) was the first cryptocurrency . It was introduced to the public in October 2008 by an anonymous developer (or group of developers) using the name Satoshi Nakamoto and launched in January 2009.

On October 31, 2008, Nakamoto wrote on the metzdowd.com cryptographic mailing list: "I've been working on a new electronic cash system that's fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party." This message also linked to the bitcoin original paper. Nakamoto left the project in late 2010 but today many developers work on bitcoin.

It is also important to note that the word bitcoin refers both to the technology and the unit of account it created. In general, people are more interested in the unit of account.

Bitcoin, the technology, is a decentralized peer-to-peer system which means that operates without a central authority or a financial institution (like a bank). Consequently, anyone can create a new bitcoin address, the unit of account, and transact without needing any approval. This addresses are stored in a ledger, called blockchain, which also records bitcoin transactions.

Bitcoin is mainly open-source. Bitcoin core, the implementation of a bitcoin node, code is open source and can be found in github, but bitcoin network users do not have all to run the same code. So there are possibly propretary implementations of bitcoin core.

Currently bitcoins can be divided up to 8 decimal places (0.00000001). Still, according to the network (bitcoin.org ), if required in the future, could be divided in smaller units as transaction size decreases.

It is far to say thet bitcoin is the most well-known and largest cryptocurrency. Its market capitalization (or market cap) at the time of writing this blog is over $2,000,000,000,000 ($2 Trilion), almost 5 times bigger than etherum the second largest cryptocurrency, and its price is above $100,000 from an initial value of $0 in Janurary 3, 2009.

Bitcoin has a capped supply of 21 million coins, making it resistant to inflation. This scarcity has contributed to its perception as "digital gold."

Bitcoin represents a groundbreaking innovation in the world of finance and technology. As the first successful implementation of blockchain technology, it has paved the way for the development of countless other cryptocurrencies and decentralized applications. While it faces challenges, bitcoin continues to be a focal point in discussions about the future of money and the digital economy.