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41 lines
3.7 KiB
HTML
41 lines
3.7 KiB
HTML
---
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layout: base-en
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id: about
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title: About - Bitcoin
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---
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<h1>About Bitcoin</h1>
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<h2>A bit of history</h2>
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<p>Bitcoin is one of the first implementations of a concept called crypto-currency, which was first described in 1998 by Wei Dai on the cypherpunks mailing list. Building upon the notion that money is any object, or any sort of record, accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context, Bitcoin is designed around the idea of a new form of money that uses cryptography to control its creation and transactions, rather than relying on central authorities.</p>
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<p>In 2009, the first Bitcoin specification and proof of concept was published in a Cryptography mailing list by a member under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto. Towards the end of 2010 Satoshi left the project saying he had moved on to other things. The creator of Bitcoin never revealed his identity and simply left his invention to the world. The origin and the motivation behind Bitcoin is still today a great source of mystery.</p>
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<p>Since 2010, the Bitcoin community has grown with many developers working on the project. During June and July 2011, Bitcoin suddenly gained media attention leading to a massive buy rally. The resulting bubble slowly deflated through the latter part of 2011 and the value of Bitcoin has since slowly climbed once again back to its 2011 heights.</p>
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<p>On September 27th 2012, the Bitcoin Foundation was created in an effort to standardize, protect, and promote Bitcoin. Today, the Bitcoin economy is developing quickly with new users joining every day.</p>
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<h2>Technical features</h2>
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<p>These are the basic features of any Bitcoin-like network.</p>
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<ul class="list">
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<li>Bitcoins can be transferred between arbitrary nodes on the network.</li>
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<li>Transactions are irreversible.</li>
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<li>Double spending is prevented by using a <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Block_chain">block chain</a>.</li>
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<li>Transactions are broadcast within seconds and <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ#Why_do_I_have_to_wait_10_minutes_before_I_can_spend_money_I_received.3F">verified within 10 to 60 minutes</a>.</li>
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<li>Transaction processing and money issuance are carried out collectively through <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining">mining</a>.</li>
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<li>Transactions can be received at any time regardless of whether your computer is turned on or off.</li>
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</ul>
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<h2>Economic rules</h2>
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<p>These rules are enforced collectively by the network. While they will not change for Bitcoin, other digital currencies using the same technology may change them to suit their needs.</p>
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<ul class="list">
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<li>Hard limit of <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_Currency_Supply">about 21 million Bitcoins</a>.</li>
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<li>Bitcoins are divisible to 8 decimal places yielding a total of approx. 21×10<sup>14</sup> currency units.</li>
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<li>Transactions are cheap, and <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fees">mostly free</a>.</li>
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</ul>
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<h2>Statistics</h2>
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<p>The network has been running for more than 45 months, yielding some impressive security features. There has been especially significant growth over the last year. As of February 2013, here are some statistics.</p>
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<ul class="list">
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<li>Long block chain (more than 220,000 blocks).</li>
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<li>A lot of processing power securing transactions - estimated at over 25 terahashes/s.</li>
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<li>Over $1 million USD of daily trade volume distributed across 40,000 transactions.</li>
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<li>Total value of all Bitcoins in circulation is over $300 million.</li>
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<li>Only one major <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Incidents#Value_overflow">security incident</a> in the protocol (fixed in August 2010).</li>
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</ul>
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