What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a peer to peer electronic cash system created by Satoshi Nakamoto.
It was first detailed in the Bitcoin Whitepaper in October 2008, and the source code was released in January 2009. The Bitcoin ledger and Block chain were established with the generation of the Genesis block on the 3rd of January 2009 and the mining of Block 1 six days later on the 9th of January 2009.
Bitcoin allows electronic payments to be sent directly from one party to another, without requiring a central institution or server to process transactions and/or store funds.
The leaderless structure of the network is viewed as a resolution to The Byzantine Generals Problem allowing disconnected entities to follow a common direction without centralised instruction. This solves several issues previously seen as unsolvable in distributed networks, including the problem of preventing Double-spending of coins.
Bitcoin is the fusion of data and money.
- In its most simple explanation, “a bitcoin” refers to a unit of the Bitcoin digital currency. Bitcoin acts as "electronic cash" that anyone can safely send over a secured distributed network directly to anyone else (peer to peer), without the need of traditional financial intermediaries.
- The “Bitcoin Protocol” is the set of rules meant to be permanently locked in to govern the flow of data through the client software and the distributed network of nodes (miners) powering the entire system.
- The “Bitcoin Blockchain” acts as a globally distributed ledger that records all Bitcoin transactions in blocks of data that are linked to create a chain (thus, creating a blockchain).
- Bitcoin is much more than just a digital currency to be used for global payments; it is also an immutable global public data ledger that enterprises can use to power blockchain applications that transform their businesses in new and exciting ways.
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