What is Bitcoin? Some things you need to know
Bitcoin is a payment system, plain and simple. Think about how you can make payments with Visa/Mastercard, Debit card and Paypal, that is what Bitcoin is. Bitcoin is just another payment system where the currency used is called Bitcoins (BTC). Bitcoin is a digital asset and a payment system. It is commonly called a decentralized digital currency.
The original Bitcoin whitepaper was submitted in 2008 by someone going off a pseudo name Satoshi Nakamoto. Recently there have been some people who have come out and said they are Satoshi Nakamoto but no one really knows.
It was invented by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009. It is an open source software. This means, that no person, company or country owns this network just like no one owns the Internet. The system is peer-to-peer, that is, users can transact directly without an intermediary like a bank, a credit card company or a clearing house.
Transactions are verified by network nodes and recorded in a public distributed ledger called the blockchain. Think an excel spreadsheet full of everyone’s transactions that can be viewed and written by everyone within the payment network. Everyone is interconnected. Nothing is hidden and nothing can be changed without the consensus of the other parties. This spreadsheet is stored within blocks that are created every 10 minutes. Each block is chained to the existing chain, hence the name blockchain.
Just like anyone can join the Internet, anyone can help to verify and record payments into the block chain. This process is called mining. In mining, users offer their computing power. Miners are rewarded with newly created bitcoins and transaction fees. Currently, miners receive 12.5 bitcoins every 10 minutes. This halves every 4 years. The next halving will happen in mid-2020.
The original Bitcoin whitepaper was submitted in 2008 by someone going off a pseudo name Satoshi Nakamoto. Recently there have been some people who have come out and said they are Satoshi Nakamoto but no one really knows.
It was invented by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009. It is an open source software. This means, that no person, company or country owns this network just like no one owns the Internet. The system is peer-to-peer, that is, users can transact directly without an intermediary like a bank, a credit card company or a clearing house.
Transactions are verified by network nodes and recorded in a public distributed ledger called the blockchain. Think an excel spreadsheet full of everyone’s transactions that can be viewed and written by everyone within the payment network. Everyone is interconnected. Nothing is hidden and nothing can be changed without the consensus of the other parties. This spreadsheet is stored within blocks that are created every 10 minutes. Each block is chained to the existing chain, hence the name blockchain.
Just like anyone can join the Internet, anyone can help to verify and record payments into the block chain. This process is called mining. In mining, users offer their computing power. Miners are rewarded with newly created bitcoins and transaction fees. Currently, miners receive 12.5 bitcoins every 10 minutes. This halves every 4 years. The next halving will happen in mid-2020.
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