What is Bitcoin ??
Who will explain to me?
Who will explain to me?
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3 answers

What is Bitcoin
I first heard about Bitcoin in 2012 from my friend. At that time, he persuaded me to buy a digital currency, motivating it with the growing value and earning potential. When I asked him what it was, he replied " Electronic money, like what you have in the bank, only no one has control over it" - his explanation did not convince me, which I later regretted. The definition of the first cryptocurrency is as follows:
"Bitcoin, bitcoin - a cryptocurrency introduced in 2009 by a person (or group of people) with the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. The name also refers to the open source software that uses it and the peer-to-peer network it forms. Private cryptographic keys that are used to authorize transactions can be saved on a personal computer in software created for this purpose, in a dedicated application on a smartphone, or in the so-called hardware wallet. In each of these cases, bitcoins can be instantly sent to the address of any participant in the bitcoin network, no matter in which part of the world the user is located. Each bitcoin is divided into 100,000,000 smaller units called satoshis.
Who is the mysterious figure of Satoshi Nakamoto you can read in the article ""SPOTTER FIGURE" - WHO IS SATOSHI NAKAMOTO?" and I will explain to you what Bitcoin really is.
Bitcoin is the first blockchain-based cryptocurrency and launched in 2009, it still remains the most popular and valuable. In essence, it is a digital record on the blockchain network, which was intended to be used for payments in the real world using the peer-to-peer method - without intermediaries. In short, P2P is a system in which there is no central server for data storage, data is stored on users' devices and exchanged only between them. In February 2019, over 17.53 million bitcoins with a total market value of around $63 billion were in circulation during the biggest bear market low (although the market price of bitcoins can fluctuate quite a bit). The success of Bitcoin spawned a series of competing cryptocurrencies known as "altcoins". Currently, there are literally thousands of cryptocurrencies with a total market value that you can check on coinpaprika.com (bitcoin currently accounts for about 70% of the total value - at least as of this writing). Some of them are clones of Bitcoin, while others are new cryptocurrencies that split off from existing ones.
There are currently 17,657,450 Bitcoins. This number changes every 10 minutes as new blocks are mined. At the moment, each new block adds 12.5 Bitcoin to circulation. The maximum and total amount of Bitcoins that can exist is 21 million. There are 3,342,550 left to be mined. There is no exact answer as to how many Bitcoins have been lost, according to one recent estimate of around 3-4 million. On average, 144 blocks are mined per day, with 12.5 bitcoins per block. 144 x 12.5 is 1800, which is the average number of new bitcoins mined per day. As many miners add new hash power, over the last few years blocks have often been found at 9.5 minute intervals rather than 10 minutes. This creates new bitcoins faster, so there are actually over 1,800 new bitcoins on most days.
Some news says that Satoshi, the creator of Bitcoin, has around 900,000 bitcoins. However, this figure is heavily debated as some say it is around 300,000 BTC.
BTC price history;
- 05/10/2009 - Fixed the exchange rate based on the cost of mining. $1 = 1309 BTC
- May 22, 2010 - First use of bitcoin as a currency - Purchase of pizza for 10,000 BTC
- 06.11.2010 – Bitcoin capitalization reaches $1 million
- 02/09/2011 – One bitcoin reaches $1
- 06/02/2011 – Rate 1BTC=10$
- 08/06/2011 - New ATH (all time high - the highest price) and the first bitcoin bubble. 1BTC = $31.91
- 03/28/2013 – Bitcoin capitalization reached $1 billion
- 10/04/2013 – The second bitcoin bubble. New ATH 1BTC = $266
- 11/19/2013 – The price of Bitcoin hits $1,000
- 2013-11-29 - Third Bitcoin Bubble - 1BTC = $1242
- 01/04/2017 – BTC exceeds $1,000 again
- 12/17/2017 - New ATH at $20,089
Why Bitcoin was created
The assumptions of the creation of Bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto described in the white paper of this project, you can download it HERE. The main reasons that guided the creators are presented below.
Anonymity - if you shop online and pay using a bank account, various financial institutions such as PayPal or a payment card, these intermediaries know what you bought, for how much, where and what it will be used for. This is pure surveillance of society. When paying with Bitcoin, no intermediary has access to this data.
International payments - to send 1 Bitcoin (BTC) to the other end of the world, you only need the recipient's public address and you can make a transfer at any time and place. It doesn't matter whether you send from Poland to Poland or from Poland to the USA - you will pay the same commission and the recipient will receive the funds at the same time.
Fees - note how many fees are involved in transferring money between bank accounts: transaction fee, bank account fee and payment card fee. In short, banks, card associations (like Visa) and other large operators with today's electronic payment systems charge a lot of fees. (The visa alone generated over $13 billion in revenue in 2014.) Avoiding these players was certainly a motivating factor in creating Bitcoin.
Anonymity - Bitcoin is not completely anonymous, because nowadays you can track almost everything on the web, but this feature also guided Satoshi when writing the Bitcoin code. With a Bitcoin wallet, only you have access to it as long as you safely store the private keys to your wallet. The wallet has two types of keys:
- Private key - allows you to view the wallet, send and receive funds
- Public key - only allows you to view your wallet and pour funds into this wallet, not send from this wallet
Here, anonymity disappears, because by sharing your public key to collect funds from the other person, that person sees how much funds you have on it, where and how much you send and receive. Its main feature is that it is not tied to the identity of the wallet owner, it does not require any personal information or even an email address - there is that bit of privacy here.
Transaction speed and cost
To put it simply, Bitcoin was supposed to be a cheap, anonymous, fast and safe digital currency for global use. It was supposed to be because it isn't. I have already described anonymity, now I will tell you about the speed and transaction fees. Transaction confirmation time (actual BTC transfer time) is closely related to the cost of transactions and their number.
- Small number of transactions = lower cost, shorter confirmation time
- Large number of transactions = higher cost, longer confirmation time
You can also reduce fees by giving a different transaction priority.
- Higher priority = higher cost, shorter confirmation time
- Lower priority = lower cost, longer confirmation time
It is technically impossible to clearly specify the time of the transaction and its cost, the fluctuations are very large and affected by many factors that I will describe in a separate article. At the time of writing this article, September 26, 2019, the average fee is around $1 and the time is around 10 minutes. In December 2017, when Bitcoin reached its highest price of almost $20,000, the fee was around $55 and you had to wait hours for the funds to appear. It should be noted here that the amount of Bitcoins does not matter either in terms of time or cost of the transaction, imagine that in December 2017, if you wanted to transfer the equivalent of $30, you would have to pay $55 commission on the transaction. The reason for such ridiculous values is the underdeveloped Bitcoin network, which is why the Lightning Network is created and it is supposed to increase throughput and reduce transaction costs during the sudden increase in network transactions.
safe haven
Currently, there is no global adoption of Bitcoin payments, and it does not seem to be happening, but it has become a subject of speculation. A large number of investors have noticed a quick profit in it, there are even those who have sold their houses to invest in Bitcoin. Due to the lack of bank control over Bitcoin and a fairly strong correlation with the price of gold, it has become a safe haven to store value. This means that during an uncertain monetary policy situation, the public buys Bitcoins to store the value of their savings. Until the creation of Bitcoin, such a safe haven was gold, silver and currencies such as the US dollar or Swiss franc. In fact, no one is sure how Bitcoin will behave during a global crisis, although in the case of mini-crises at the local level, the price of Bitcoin has always shot up. This has already been the case in Cyprus, Argentina, Greece, China, India, Turkey, Iran, Palestine, Nigeria, and in the Brexit United Kingdom.
What is Bitcoin
I first heard about Bitcoin in 2012 from my friend. At that time, he persuaded me to buy a digital currency, motivating it with the growing value and earning potential. When I asked him what it was, he replied " Electronic money, like what you have in the bank, only no one has control over it" - his explanation did not convince me, which I later regretted. The definition of the first cryptocurrency is as follows:
"Bitcoin, bitcoin - a cryptocurrency introduced in 2009 by a person (or group of people) with the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. The name also refers to the open source software that uses it and the peer-to-peer network it forms. Private cryptographic keys that are used to authorize transactions can be saved on a personal computer in software created for this purpose, in a dedicated application on a smartphone, or in the so-called hardware wallet. In each of these cases, bitcoins can be instantly sent to the address of any participant in the bitcoin network, no matter in which part of the world the user is located. Each bitcoin is divided into 100,000,000 smaller units called satoshis.
Who is the mysterious figure of Satoshi Nakamoto you can read in the article ""SPOTTER FIGURE" - WHO IS SATOSHI NAKAMOTO?" and I will explain to you what Bitcoin really is.
Bitcoin is the first blockchain-based cryptocurrency and launched in 2009, it still remains the most popular and valuable. In essence, it is a digital record on the blockchain network, which was intended to be used for payments in the real world using the peer-to-peer method - without intermediaries. In short, P2P is a system in which there is no central server for data storage, data is stored on users' devices and exchanged only between them. In February 2019, over 17.53 million bitcoins with a total market value of around $63 billion were in circulation during the biggest bear market low (although the market price of bitcoins can fluctuate quite a bit). The success of Bitcoin spawned a series of competing cryptocurrencies known as "altcoins". Currently, there are literally thousands of cryptocurrencies with a total market value that you can check on coinpaprika.com (bitcoin currently accounts for about 70% of the total value - at least as of this writing). Some of them are clones of Bitcoin, while others are new cryptocurrencies that split off from existing ones.
There are currently 17,657,450 Bitcoins. This number changes every 10 minutes as new blocks are mined. At the moment, each new block adds 12.5 Bitcoin to circulation. The maximum and total amount of Bitcoins that can exist is 21 million. There are 3,342,550 left to be mined. There is no exact answer as to how many Bitcoins have been lost, according to one recent estimate of around 3-4 million. On average, 144 blocks are mined per day, with 12.5 bitcoins per block. 144 x 12.5 is 1800, which is the average number of new bitcoins mined per day. As many miners add new hash power, over the last few years blocks have often been found at 9.5 minute intervals rather than 10 minutes. This creates new bitcoins faster, so there are actually over 1,800 new bitcoins on most days.
Some news says that Satoshi, the creator of Bitcoin, has around 900,000 bitcoins. However, this figure is heavily debated as some say it is around 300,000 BTC.
BTC price history;
- 05/10/2009 - Fixed the exchange rate based on the cost of mining. $1 = 1309 BTC
- May 22, 2010 - First use of bitcoin as a currency - Purchase of pizza for 10,000 BTC
- 06.11.2010 – Bitcoin capitalization reaches $1 million
- 02/09/2011 – One bitcoin reaches $1
- 06/02/2011 – Rate 1BTC=10$
- 08/06/2011 - New ATH (all time high - the highest price) and the first bitcoin bubble. 1BTC = $31.91
- 03/28/2013 – Bitcoin capitalization reached $1 billion
- 10/04/2013 – The second bitcoin bubble. New ATH 1BTC = $266
- 11/19/2013 – The price of Bitcoin hits $1,000
- 2013-11-29 - Third Bitcoin Bubble - 1BTC = $1242
- 01/04/2017 – BTC exceeds $1,000 again
- 12/17/2017 - New ATH at $20,089
Why Bitcoin was created
The assumptions of the creation of Bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto described in the white paper of this project, you can download it HERE. The main reasons that guided the creators are presented below.
Anonymity - if you shop online and pay using a bank account, various financial institutions such as PayPal or a payment card, these intermediaries know what you bought, for how much, where and what it will be used for. This is pure surveillance of society. When paying with Bitcoin, no intermediary has access to this data.
International payments - to send 1 Bitcoin (BTC) to the other end of the world, you only need the recipient's public address and you can make a transfer at any time and place. It doesn't matter whether you send from Poland to Poland or from Poland to the USA - you will pay the same commission and the recipient will receive the funds at the same time.
Fees - note how many fees are involved in transferring money between bank accounts: transaction fee, bank account fee and payment card fee. In short, banks, card associations (like Visa) and other large operators with today's electronic payment systems charge a lot of fees. (The visa alone generated over $13 billion in revenue in 2014.) Avoiding these players was certainly a motivating factor in creating Bitcoin.
Anonymity - Bitcoin is not completely anonymous, because nowadays you can track almost everything on the web, but this feature also guided Satoshi when writing the Bitcoin code. With a Bitcoin wallet, only you have access to it as long as you safely store the private keys to your wallet. The wallet has two types of keys:
- Private key - allows you to view the wallet, send and receive funds
- Public key - only allows you to view your wallet and pour funds into this wallet, not send from this wallet
Here, anonymity disappears, because by sharing your public key to collect funds from the other person, that person sees how much funds you have on it, where and how much you send and receive. Its main feature is that it is not tied to the identity of the wallet owner, it does not require any personal information or even an email address - there is that bit of privacy here.
Transaction speed and cost
To put it simply, Bitcoin was supposed to be a cheap, anonymous, fast and safe digital currency for global use. It was supposed to be because it isn't. I have already described anonymity, now I will tell you about the speed and transaction fees. Transaction confirmation time (actual BTC transfer time) is closely related to the cost of transactions and their number.
- Small number of transactions = lower cost, shorter confirmation time
- Large number of transactions = higher cost, longer confirmation time
You can also reduce fees by giving a different transaction priority.
- Higher priority = higher cost, shorter confirmation time
- Lower priority = lower cost, longer confirmation time
It is technically impossible to clearly specify the time of the transaction and its cost, the fluctuations are very large and affected by many factors that I will describe in a separate article. At the time of writing this article, September 26, 2019, the average fee is around $1 and the time is around 10 minutes. In December 2017, when Bitcoin reached its highest price of almost $20,000, the fee was around $55 and you had to wait hours for the funds to appear. It should be noted here that the amount of Bitcoins does not matter either in terms of time or cost of the transaction, imagine that in December 2017, if you wanted to transfer the equivalent of $30, you would have to pay $55 commission on the transaction. The reason for such ridiculous values is the underdeveloped Bitcoin network, which is why the Lightning Network is created and it is supposed to increase throughput and reduce transaction costs during the sudden increase in network transactions.
safe haven
Currently, there is no global adoption of Bitcoin payments, and it does not seem to be happening, but it has become a subject of speculation. A large number of investors have noticed a quick profit in it, there are even those who have sold their houses to invest in Bitcoin. Due to the lack of bank control over Bitcoin and a fairly strong correlation with the price of gold, it has become a safe haven to store value. This means that during an uncertain monetary policy situation, the public buys Bitcoins to store the value of their savings. Until the creation of Bitcoin, such a safe haven was gold, silver and currencies such as the US dollar or Swiss franc. In fact, no one is sure how Bitcoin will behave during a global crisis, although in the case of mini-crises at the local level, the price of Bitcoin has always shot up. This has already been the case in Cyprus, Argentina, Greece, China, India, Turkey, Iran, Palestine, Nigeria, and in the Brexit United Kingdom.
Machine translated
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It is the digital equivalent of a means of payment. The oldest and currently the most expensive cryptocurrency.
It is the digital equivalent of a means of payment. The oldest and currently the most expensive cryptocurrency.
Machine translated

Machine translated