The Bitcoin Dive
8 sections explaining different aspects of Bitcoin in a way that makes sense to most people.
For the best experience, we recommend viewing The Bitcoin Dive on a computer rather than mobile.
What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a decentralised digital currency, created in 2008 by an anonymous person or group using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto (you can find Bitcoin's white paper at the bottom of this page).
It operates on a peer-to-peer network, allowing users to send and receive payments without intermediaries like banks. Transactions are recorded on a public ledger called the blockchain, secured by cryptography and maintained by a network of computers (nodes). Bitcoin has a fixed supply cap of 21 million coins with a tight scheduled inflation rate that halves every four years.
It's resistant to censorship or control by any central authority, allowing you to opt out of the current system that is designed to control your wealth and reduce your purchasing power through inflation.
Bitcoin is mainly used as a store of value today, but is also growing as a medium of exchange worldwide.
Satoshi published the white paper for Bitcoin in October 2008:
Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
Abstract.
A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are lost if a trusted third party is still required to prevent double-spending.
We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network. The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work. The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU power. As long as a majority of CPU power is controlled by nodes that are not cooperating to attack the network, they'll generate the longest chain and outpace attackers. The
network itself requires minimal structure. Messages are broadcast on a best effort basis, and nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the longest proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone.
