Bitcoin
Sign in to saveBitcoin (abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is the first decentralized cryptocurrency. Based on a free-market ideology, bitcoin was invented in 2008 when an unknown person published a white paper under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto. Use of bitcoin as a currency began in 2009, with the release of its open-source implementation. From 2021 to 2025, El Salvador adopted it as legal tender currency before revoking it. As bitcoin is pseudonymous, its use by criminals has attracted the attention of regulators, leading to its ban by several countries.
AI overview
Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency created in 2008 that operates without a central authority, allowing people to conduct transactions directly with each other. It has attracted significant regulatory scrutiny because of its pseudonymous nature, which has enabled some criminal use, leading certain countries to ban it, while El Salvador briefly adopted it as official legal tender before reversing that decision.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Key facts
- Cryptocurrency.currency_name
- Bitcoin
- Cryptocurrency.image_1
- Bitcoin.svg
- Cryptocurrency.image_width_1
- 150
- Cryptocurrency.image_width_2
- 110
- Cryptocurrency.image_title_1
- Commonly used logo of bitcoin
- Cryptocurrency.alt1
- Prevailing bitcoin logo
- Cryptocurrency.precision
- 10−8
- Cryptocurrency.subunit_name_1
- millibitcoin
- Cryptocurrency.subunit_name_2
- microbitcoin
- Cryptocurrency.plural
- bitcoins
- Cryptocurrency.symbol
- ₿(Unicode: )
- Cryptocurrency.code
- BTC
Article
26 sectionsContents
- History
- Background
- 2008–2009: Creation
- 2010–2012: Early growth
- 2013–2014: First regulatory actions
- 2015–2019
- 2020–present
- Design
- Units and divisibility
- Blockchain
- Addresses and transactions
- Mining
- Privacy and fungibility
- Wallets
- Scalability and decentralization challenges
- Economics and usage
- Bitcoin's theoretical roots and ideology
- Recognition as a currency and legal status
- Use for payments
- Use for investment and status as an economic bubble
- Market characteristics
- See also
- Notes
- References
- Further reading
- External links
Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is the first decentralized cryptocurrency. Based on a free-market ideology, bitcoin was invented in 2008 when an unknown person published a white paper under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto. Use of bitcoin as a currency began in 2009, with the release of its open-source implementation. From 2021 to 2025, El Salvador adopted it as legal tender currency before revoking it. As bitcoin is pseudonymous, its use by criminals has attracted the attention of regulators, leading to its ban by several countries.
Bitcoin works through the collaboration of computers, each of which acts as a node in the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Each node maintains an independent copy of a public distributed ledger of transactions, called a blockchain, without central oversight. Transactions are validated through the use of cryptography, preventing one person from spending another person's bitcoin, as long as the owner of the bitcoin keeps certain sensitive data secret.