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Introduction
Bitcoin is a decentralized peer-to-peer digital currency and blockchain network designed to enable electronic payments without relying on a central authority. The Bitcoin network is maintained by independently operated nodes, miners, developers, users, and other participants distributed around the world.
Bitcoin uses Proof of Work consensus to secure its blockchain and prevent double spending. Transactions are broadcast across the peer-to-peer network, validated by participating nodes, and organized into blocks by miners. Bitcoin was launched in 2009 and uses a fixed issuance schedule with a maximum supply of 21 million BTC.
BTC Token
BTC is the native asset of the Bitcoin network. It is used for peer-to-peer payments, settlement, and transfer of value without requiring a centralized intermediary. BTC is divisible into smaller units called satoshis, with one bitcoin equal to 100,000,000 satoshis.
New BTC enters circulation through mining rewards. The block subsidy is reduced by half every 210,000 blocks, approximately every four years. The current block subsidy is 3.125 BTC following the fourth Bitcoin halving at block 840,000 in April 2024. Bitcoin's issuance is scheduled to continue decreasing until the maximum supply of 21 million BTC is reached.
Maximum Supply: 21,000,000 BTC
Current Block Subsidy: 3.125 BTC
Token Type: Native Digital Asset
Network: Bitcoin
Consensus: Proof of Work
Smallest Unit: 1 satoshi = 0.00000001 BTC
Token Distribution
Bitcoin does not have a traditional token allocation, private sale, or premine. BTC is issued according to the Bitcoin protocol through block rewards paid to miners that successfully produce valid blocks.
The block subsidy began at 50 BTC per block in 2009 and is reduced by 50% every 210,000 blocks. In addition to the block subsidy, miners receive transaction fees from transactions included in the blocks they produce. The issuance schedule is designed to approach a maximum supply of 21 million BTC.
Initial Block Subsidy: 50 BTC
Current Block Subsidy: 3.125 BTC
Halving Interval: 210,000 blocks
Maximum Supply: 21,000,000 BTC
Premine: None
Technology
Bitcoin uses a peer-to-peer network in which full nodes independently download and validate blocks and transactions according to Bitcoin's consensus rules. Valid blocks are linked together through cryptographic hashes, creating a chronological blockchain that records the network's transaction history.
Proof of Work requires miners to repeatedly calculate hashes of block headers until a valid hash meeting the network's difficulty target is found. The Bitcoin network adjusts mining difficulty every 2,016 blocks to maintain an average target of approximately one block every 10 minutes.
Bitcoin transactions use a transaction scripting system to define the conditions under which funds can be spent. Modern Bitcoin also supports technologies including Segregated Witness, Schnorr signatures, and Taproot, which expanded transaction functionality and improved the efficiency and flexibility of Bitcoin's scripting and transaction system.
Bitcoin Core is the primary reference implementation used by a large portion of the Bitcoin network. The Bitcoin Core project includes full-node software that connects to the peer-to-peer network, downloads and validates blocks and transactions, and provides wallet and graphical interface functionality.
Mining & Network Security
Bitcoin is secured through Proof of Work mining. Miners compete to produce valid blocks by performing computational work, and the network's consensus rules determine which blocks and transactions are valid.
The difficulty adjustment mechanism recalibrates the network's mining difficulty every 2,016 blocks based on the time required to produce the previous difficulty period. This mechanism is designed to maintain an average block interval of approximately 10 minutes as the amount of available mining power changes.
Bitcoin miners receive the block subsidy and transaction fees associated with valid blocks they produce. As the block subsidy decreases through successive halvings, transaction fees represent an increasing portion of the economic incentive for miners to continue securing the network.
Team & Organization
Bitcoin was introduced in 2008 through the publication of the Bitcoin whitepaper by Satoshi Nakamoto, followed by the launch of the Bitcoin network in January 2009. Satoshi Nakamoto developed the original Bitcoin software and participated in the project's early development before leaving the project.
Bitcoin does not have a central company or organization that owns or controls the protocol. Development is carried out by independent contributors, with Bitcoin Core maintained through an open-source development process. The Bitcoin Core repository is released under the MIT license and continues to receive contributions from developers around the world.
Governance
Bitcoin does not use a centralized governance organization or an on-chain voting system for protocol changes. Bitcoin's consensus rules are enforced independently by network nodes, while proposed protocol improvements are developed and documented through Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs).
BIPs provide a structured process for proposing technical changes, standards, and improvements to Bitcoin. A proposal does not automatically change the network's consensus rules. Changes that affect consensus require compatible software to be adopted by sufficient network participants for the new rules to take effect.
Bitcoin's development and governance process involves multiple independent participants, including developers, node operators, miners, businesses, users, and other ecosystem participants. This distributed structure means that no single entity has unilateral authority to change Bitcoin's consensus rules.
Project Links
Website:
https://bitcoin.org/
Developer Documentation:
https://developer.bitcoin.org/
Explorer:
https://mempool.space/
Source Code:
GitHub: bitcoin/bitcoin
GitHub: bitcoin/bips
Whitepaper
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