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Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is the first decentralized cryptocurrency. Based on a free-market ideology, bitcoin was invented in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto, an unknown entity (person or persons). [5] Use of bitcoin as a currency began in 2009, [6] with the release of its open-source implementation.
Greater centralization of the Bitcoin network may be required if Bitcoin is ever going to tip into the mainstream. Bitcoin May Not Be as Decentralized as You Think. Why That's a Good Thing.
A logo for Bitcoin, the first decentralized cryptocurrency The genesis block of Bitcoin's blockchain, with a note containing The Times newspaper headline. This note has been interpreted as a comment on the instability caused by fractional-reserve banking.
Digital money can either be centralized, where there is a central point of control over the money supply (for instance, a bank), or decentralized, where the control over the money supply is predetermined or agreed upon democratically.
A diagram of a bitcoin transfer. The bitcoin protocol is the set of rules that govern the functioning of bitcoin.Its key components and principles are: a peer-to-peer decentralized network with no central oversight; the blockchain technology, a public ledger that records all bitcoin transactions; mining and proof of work, the process to create new bitcoins and verify transactions; and ...
Bitcoin's system for transaction validation is designed so that the average time for a block on bitcoin's blockchain to be mined is 10 minutes. [11] Ethereum offers a reduced latency of one mined block every 12 seconds on average (called Block Time). For comparison, Visa handles approximately 10,000 transactions per second.
FinCEN defined centralized virtual currencies in 2013 as virtual currencies that have a "centralized repository", similar to a central bank, and a "central administrator". A decentralized currency was defined by the US Department of Treasury as a "currency (1) that has no central repository and no single administrator, and (2) that persons may ...
In the US, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) established regulatory guidelines for "decentralized virtual currencies" such as bitcoin, classifying American bitcoin miners who sell their generated bitcoins as Money Service Businesses (or MSBs), that may be subject to registration and other legal obligations.