Bitcoin

What Is Bitcoin (BTC)?

A person going by the alias Satoshi Nakamoto first described Bitcoin as a decentralized cryptocurrency in a whitepaper in 2008. Soon after, in January 2009, it was released.

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer digital currency, which means that all transactions take place directly between identical, independent network users without the aid of a middleman. In Nakamoto's own words, the purpose of Bitcoin was to enable "direct online payments from one party to another without going through a financial institution."

Although there have been some ideas for a similar kind of decentralized electronic currency before BTC, it is the first cryptocurrency to actually be used.