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Bitcoin was invented by an unknown person or group of people under the name Satoshi Nakamoto [11] and released as open-source software in Bitcoins are created as a reward for a process known as mining. They can be exchanged for other currencies, [13] products, and services. As of Februaryovermerchants and vendors accepted bitcoin as payment.

The word bitcoin first occurred and was defined in the white paper [5] that was published on 31 October There is no uniform convention for bitcoin capitalization. Some sources use Bitcoincapitalized, to refer to the technology and network and bitcoinlowercase, to refer to the unit of account. The unit of account of the bitcoin system is a bitcoin. Named in homage to bitcoin's creator, a satoshi is the smallest amount within bitcoin representing 0.

As with most new symbols, wiki what is bitcoin made support is very limited. Typefaces supporting it include Horta. Wiki what is bitcoin made 18 Augustthe domain name "bitcoin. In Januarythe bitcoin network came into wiki what is bitcoin made after Satoshi Nakamoto mined the first ever block on the chain, known as the genesis block. This note has been interpreted as both a timestamp of the genesis date and a derisive comment on the instability caused by fractional-reserve banking.

The receiver of the first bitcoin wiki what is bitcoin made was cypherpunk Hal Finneywho created the first reusable proof-of-work system RPOW in In the early days, Nakamoto is estimated to have mined 1 million bitcoins. So, if I get hit by a bus, it would be clear that the project would go on. Over the history of Bitcoin there have been several spins offs and deliberate hard forks that have lived on as separate blockchains.

These have come to be known as "altcoins", short for alternative coins, since Bitcoin was the first blockchain and these are derivative of it. These spin offs occur so that new ideas can be tested, when the scope of that idea is outside that of Bitcoin, or when the community is split about merging such changes. Since then there have been numerous forks of Bitcoin. See list of bitcoin forks. The blockchain is a public ledger that records bitcoin transactions. A novel solution accomplishes this without any trusted central authority: The blockchain wiki what is bitcoin made a distributed database — to achieve independent verification of the chain of ownership of any and every bitcoin amount, each network node stores its own copy of the blockchain.

This allows bitcoin software to determine when a wiki what is bitcoin made bitcoin amount has been spent, which is necessary in order to prevent double-spending in an environment without central oversight. Whereas a conventional ledger records the wiki what is bitcoin made of actual bills or promissory notes that exist apart from it, the blockchain is the only place that bitcoins can be said to exist in the form of unspent outputs of transactions.

Transactions are defined using a Forth -like scripting language. 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. 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. Paying a transaction fee is optional. Because the size of mined blocks is capped by the network, miners choose transactions based on the fee paid relative to their storage size, not the absolute amount of money paid as a fee.

The size of transactions is dependent on the number of inputs used to create the transaction, and the number of outputs. In the blockchain, bitcoins are registered to bitcoin addresses. Creating a bitcoin address is wiki what is bitcoin made 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 mathematically unfeasible and so users can tell others and 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 for that. To be able to spend the bitcoins, the owner must know the corresponding private key and digitally sign the transaction.

The network verifies the signature using the public key. If the private key is lost, the bitcoin network will not recognize any other evidence of ownership; [9] the coins are then unusable, and effectively lost. Mining is a record-keeping service done through the use of wiki what is bitcoin made processing power.

To be accepted by the rest of the network, a new block must contain a so-called proof-of-work PoW. Every 2, blocks approximately 14 days at roughly 10 min per blockthe difficulty target is adjusted based on the network's recent performance, with the aim of keeping the average time between new blocks at ten minutes. In this way the system automatically adapts to the wiki what is bitcoin made amount of mining wiki what is bitcoin made on the network. The proof-of-work system, alongside the chaining of blocks, makes modifications of the blockchain extremely hard, as an attacker must modify all subsequent blocks in order for the modifications of one block to be accepted.

Computing power is often bundled together or "pooled" to reduce variance in miner income. Individual mining rigs often have to wait for long periods to confirm a block of transactions and receive payment.

In a pool, all participating miners get paid every time a participating server solves a block. This payment depends on the amount of work an individual miner contributed to help find that block.

The successful miner finding the new block is rewarded with newly created bitcoins and transaction fees. To claim the reward, a special transaction called a coinbase is included with the processed payments. The bitcoin protocol specifies that the reward for adding a block will be halved everyblocks approximately every four years. Eventually, the reward will decrease to zero, and the limit of 21 million bitcoins [f] will be reached c. Their numbers are being released roughly every ten minutes and the rate at which they are generated would drop by half every four years until all were in circulation.

A wallet stores the information necessary to transact bitcoins. While wallets are often described as a place to hold [60] or store bitcoins, [61] due to the nature of the system, bitcoins are inseparable from the blockchain transaction ledger. A better way to describe a wallet is something that "stores the digital credentials for your bitcoin holdings" [61] and allows wiki what is bitcoin made to access and spend them. Bitcoin uses public-key cryptographyin which two cryptographic keys, one public and one private, are wiki what is bitcoin made.

There are wiki what is bitcoin made modes which wallets can operate in. They have an inverse relationship with regards to trustlessness and computational requirements. Third-party internet services called online wallets 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.

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. Physical wallets store offline the credentials necessary to spend bitcoins. Another type of wallet called a hardware wallet keeps credentials offline while facilitating transactions. The first wallet program — simply named "Bitcoin" — was released in by Satoshi Nakamoto as open-source code. While a decentralized system cannot have an "official" implementation, Bitcoin Core is considered by some to be bitcoin's preferred implementation.

Bitcoin was designed not to need a central authority [5] and the bitcoin network is considered to be decentralized. In mining pool Ghash. The pool has voluntarily capped their hashing power at Bitcoin is pseudonymousmeaning 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 wiki what is bitcoin made through "idioms of use" e. To heighten financial privacy, a new bitcoin address can be generated for each transaction. Wallets and similar software technically handle all bitcoins as equivalent, establishing the basic level of fungibility.

Researchers have pointed out that the history of each bitcoin is registered and publicly available in the blockchain ledger, and that some users may refuse to accept bitcoins coming from controversial transactions, which would harm bitcoin's fungibility.

The blocks in the blockchain were originally limited to 32 megabyte in size. The block size limit of one megabyte was introduced by Satoshi Nakamoto inas an anti-spam measure. Transaction records traditionally contain a certain amount of data that is mostly only used while confirming the block in question; it does not serve any real purpose once the block is safely on the chain. SegWit introduces a new transaction format that segregates these record fields from record fields of lasting value such as ID, sender, recipient, or amount.

The segregated data, the so-called witnessis not written into the block but is thrown away upon successful confirmation. This lowers the size of the average transaction, thereby increasing the effective carrying capacity of each block without having to alter the physical block size.

Bitcoin is a digital asset designed by its inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto, to work as a currency. The question whether bitcoin is a currency or not is still disputed. According to research produced wiki what is bitcoin made Cambridge Universitythere wiki what is bitcoin made between 2. The number of users has grown significantly sincewhen there wereto 1.

Inthe number of merchants accepting bitcoin exceededReasons for this fall include high transaction fees due to bitcoin's scalability issues, long transaction times and a rise in value making consumers unwilling to spend it. Merchants accepting bitcoin ordinarily use the services of bitcoin payment service providers such as BitPay or Coinbase.

When a customer pays in bitcoin, the payment service provider accepts the bitcoin on behalf of the merchant, converts it to the local currency, and sends the obtained amount to merchant's bank account, charging a fee for the service. Bitcoins can be bought on digital currency exchanges. According to Tony Gallippia co-founder of BitPay"banks are scared to deal with bitcoin companies, even if they really want to".

In a report, Bank of America Merrill Lynch stated that "we believe bitcoin can become a major means of payment for e-commerce and may emerge as a serious competitor to traditional money-transfer providers.

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Bitcoin is a digital and global money system currency. It allows people to send or receive money across the internet, even to someone they don't know or don't trust. Money can be exchanged without being linked to a real identity.

The mathematical field of cryptography is the basis for Bitcoin's security. A Bitcoin address, or simply address, is an identifier of letters and numbers, beginning with the number 1 or 3, that represents a possible destination for a bitcoin payment.

Addresses can be generated at no cost by any user of Bitcoin. For example, using Bitcoin Core, one can click "New Address" and be assigned an address. It is also possible to get a Bitcoin address using an account at an exchange or online wallet service. One of the differences between using bitcoin and using regular money online is that bitcoin can be used without having an internet connection to link any sort of real-world identity to it.

Unless someone chooses to link their name to a bitcoin address, it is hard to tell who owns the address. Bitcoin does not keep track of users; it keeps track of addresses where the money is. Each address has two important pieces of cryptographic information, or keys: The public key, which is what the "bitcoin address" is created from, is similar to an email address; anyone can look it up and send bitcoins to it. The private address, or private key, is similar to an email password; only with it can the owner send bitcoins from it.

Because of this, it is very important that this private key is kept secret. To send bitcoins from an address, you prove to the network that you own the private key that corresponds to the address, without revealing the private key. This is done with a branch of mathematics known as public key cryptography.

A public key is what determines the ownership of bitcoins, and is very similar to an ID number. If someone wanted to send you bitcoins, all you would need to do is supply them your bitcoin address, which is a version of your public key that is easier to read and type.

Anyone using the system can see how much money "ABC" has and how much money "DEF" has, but they cannot tell anything about who owns the address. But Bob and Alice each have a second key which only they individually know. This is the private key, and it is the "other half" of a Bitcoin address. The private key is never shared, and allows the owner of the bitcoins to control them. However, if the private key is not kept secret, then anyone who sees it can also control and take the bitcoins there.

The person who took it, told others about it later, saying "I'll send it back once Matt gives me a new address, since someone else can sweep [empty] out the old one. Sites or users using the Bitcoin system are required to use a global database called the blockchain. The blockchain is a record of all transactions that have taken place in the Bitcoin network. It also keeps track of new bitcoins as they are generated. With these two facts, the blockchain is able to keep track of who has how much money at all times.

To generate a bitcoin, a miner must solve a math problem. However, the difficulty of the math problem depends on how many people are mining for bitcoin at the moment.

Because of how complicated the math problems usually are, they must be calculated with very powerful processors. The process of generating the bitcoins is called mining. People who use these machines to mine bitcoins are called miners. Miners either compete with one another or work together in groups to solve a mathematical puzzle. The first miner or group of miners to solve the particular puzzle are rewarded with new bitcoins.

The puzzle is determined by the transactions being sent at the time and the previous puzzle solution. This means the solution to one puzzle is always different from the puzzles before. Attempting to change an earlier transaction, maybe to fake bitcoins being sent or change the number of someone's bitcoins, requires solving that puzzle again, which takes a lot of work, and also requires solving each of the following puzzles, which takes even more work.

This means a bitcoin cheater needs to outpace all the other bitcoin miners to change the bitcoin history. This makes the bitcoin blockchain very safe to use. A popular image associated with Bitcoin is a QR code. QR codes are a group of black and white boxes that are similar to barcodes. Barcodes have one dimension of information, while QR codes have two horizontal and vertical.

Barcodes are a row of lines, and QR codes are a grid of squares. Bitcoin uses QR codes because they can store a lot of information in a small space, and a camera such as a smartphone can read them. The two QR codes on the Bitcoin note are the public and private addresses, and can be scanned with a number of online tools. Everyone in the Bitcoin network is considered a peer, and all addresses are created equal.

All transactions can take place solely from peer to peer, but a number of sites exist to make these transactions simpler. These sites are called exchanges. Exchanges provide tools for dealing in Bitcoin. Some allow the purchase of Bitcoin from external accounts, and others allow trading with other cryptography-based currencies like Bitcoin.

Most exchanges also provide a basic "wallet" service. Wallets provide a handy way to keep track of all of a user's public and private addresses. Because addresses are pseudo-anonymous, anyone can have as many addresses as they want.

This is useful for dealing with multiple people, but it can get complicated to manage multiple accounts. A wallet holds all of this information in a convenient place, just like a real wallet would. A backup of a wallet prevents 'losing' the bitcoins.

Bitcoin adoption and use continues to grow a lot every year. Since , Bitcoin has gained the attention of the mainstream media; one way is the WannaCry ransomware created in May Bitcoin has often been criticized for its unstable price, its network's high electricity consumption, and for its high transaction fees. Additionally, it has been criticized for having characteristics in common with Ponzi and pyramid schemes. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

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