Bitcoin (BTC)

General Data and Information. The theory behind Bitcoin was first described by Satoshi Nakomoto in a paper “Bitcoin: A Peer to Peer Electronic Cash System”published to a cryptographic mailing list on the 31st of October 2008. In this paper, Satoshi described the protocol (Proof of Work) that would solve the “double-spend”problem inherent in non-physical (digital) forms of currency. The first or Genesis block was mined by Satoshi on the 3rd of January 2009, with the text “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks” written into the coinbase of the block to act both as a timestamp and a rebuke to the economic instability caused by the widespread practice of fractional reserve banking. The total supply of Bitcoins is capped at 21 million coins (roughly 18 million are currently in circulation), with each coin being divisible to the 8th decimal place, with a single unit of the smallest division (0.00000001 BTC) being known colloquially as a Satoshi (or sat). The software to run miners and wallets is open source and decentralized, meaning that the network is accessible to anyone with a computer and an internet connection. Transactions are validated and written into the blockchain by miners selected via the Proof of Work (SHA-256) protocol. The difficulty of the Proof of Work algorithm is adjusted every 2016 blocks (roughly 2 weeks) to maintain an average block time of roughly 10 minutes. New Bitcoins are created (minted) as a reward to the miner that mined the valid block, with the reward currently sitting at 12.5 Bitcoins per block. This block reward is halved every 210,000 blocks (roughly 4 years) until it reaches zero. This block reward serves as an economic incentive for the miners to continue securing the Bitcoin network.

Milestones. 31st October 2008 - White paper released by Satoshi Nakomoto. 3rd January 2009 - Genesis block mined by Satoshi Nakomoto. 12th January 2009 -First transaction using Bitcoin; Satoshi Nakomoto sends 100 BTC to Hal Finney. 22nd May 2010 - First recorded commercial transaction using Bitcoin; aka Pizza Day. 14th January 2016 - Lightning Network white paper, a Layer-2 solution to scaling Bitcoin. 1st August 2017 - Bitcoin Cash (BCH) hard fork. 23rd August 2017 - Segregated Witness (SegWit) implemented. Utility. As the flagship cryptocurrency, Bitcoin maintains the largest market capitalization and liquidity making it the “reserve” currency against which all other crypto-currencies trade against. This means that crypto exchanges are obliged to offer BTC trading pairs ahead of any other pairing.This reserve status combined with the widespread availability of trading pairs gives Bitcoin a special status as a store of value in the crypto-currency ecosystem; trading between two alternative cryptocurrencies will often require Bitcoin as a bridge currency to facilitate the exchange. In addition, the widespread brand recognition of Bitcoin makes it is the first port of call for most newcomers to the crypto-currency space and it’s name is often considered by the wider public to be synonymous with the entire crypto-currency ecosystem. Although the acceptance of Bitcoin by vendors in the developed nations is not on the level of established fiat currencies, Bitcoin is finding more traction in developing countries where the existing fiat currencies are not able to properly function as stores of value over time.

Significant Features. - Decentralized access allowing any party with the open-source software and internet access to send and receive Bitcoin irreversibly without third party interference or trust. - Decentralized governance via open-source development and forking. - Relatively slow block times in comparison to other crypto-currencies although there are solutions in development such as the Lightning Network aiming to solve the problem of scaling. - Largest hashrate (ensuring the security and resilience of the blockchain) and largest liquidity. - Most common currency for crypto-currency exchange pairing. - The hard coded scarcity (maximum 21 million coins) has led to comparisons to traditional physical scarce resources like gold. - Transactions are pseduo-anonymous. Funds are sent address to address, but an owner identity can eventually attributed to an address given enough data and analysis. - Average blocktime of 10 minutes; Total supply of 21 million BTC; Consensus via Proof of Work (SHA-256). References: ..

In 2009, the concept of a peer-to-peer electronic payment system was published in a whitepaper that revolutionized the world and laid foundations for the birth of a multi-billion dollar industry of cryptocurrencies. Little did anyone know that the technologies and applications the cryptocurrencies provide will offer so much in value and open doors for further innovations. Bitcoin was the very first cryptocurrency to be accepted as a peer-to-peer version of an electronic payment system, therefore opening doors for other cryptocurrencies to be born.
The primary aim behind the inception of Bitcoin was to provide people with an easier and more efficient means of transaction that was not under the authority of any institution. Apart from the decentralization concept, it intended to solve the delay and time-costly transactional processes and cut down on the fee charges. Bitcoin, in summary, was trying to achieve the same functionality as companies like PayPal, but attempted to save users their money and render these third-party systems obsolete and useless (Nakamoto, 2009).

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The actual product or the application of the Bitcoin network is mainly for transactional purposes. Within 10 years, 350 million transactions have been processed by the Bitcoin network since 2009. The network allows up to 7 transactions per second and the transactional speeds are in seconds (Blockchain.com, 2019).

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The founder of Bitcoin has remained a mystery to the whole world. The founder goes by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto and it is still unclear as to whether this name is real or a pseudonym. The smallest Bitcoin amount that can be transferred is named after him and is known as 1 Satoshi (0.00000001 BTC). After the founder of the Bitcoin, it is the lead developer Wladimir J. van der Laan who has earned the trust and support of previous developers and the Bitcoin community on the whole. Vladimir is not involved in any other projects and is working solely for Bitcoin (Bitcoin Wiki, 2015).

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Bitcoin saw the peak of its glory in the ‘bull-run’ of 2017-2018 when it increased by tenfold and took the whole world by storm. However, after that, its popularity took a major hit. The number of newspapers and websites willing to write and publish articles about Bitcoin reduced drastically, as more and more alternative cryptocurrencies stormed the market each day.
Currently, Bitcoin holds around 50% of the market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies available and is getting accepted by more and more businesses. Recently, Bitcoin was announced as a legal medium for the general public to pay their taxes in the State of Ohio. With this major development in November 2018, it is likely that more states will follow in introducing similar incentives (Ma, 2019).

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The Bitcoin community works actively at all times to update and improve its code. With its tech-savvy users and many developers present on the network, the code is updated and upgraded quite frequently. Some developers have also managed to push their work directly to the source code. The lead developer right now is Vladimir J. van der Laan, who was nominated by the last leader in 2011 (Github, 2019).

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Bitcoin has laid down the foundations for a global digital payment system and sooner or later, this vision will become a reality. Though, it is difficult to predict whether it would be Bitcoin, or some other cryptocurrency based on Blockchain or even some altcoin based on new technology. For Bitcoin to remain in the number game, it needs to address issues related to its transactional speed, transactional limits and the energy-intensive nature of its processes. If it can successfully solve these problems, it can maintain its position as the industry leader. Bitcoin still might be the future gold of cryptocurrencies.

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Bitcoin developers are researching and working on many different projects some of which are already in their development phase. There could potentially be voting systems within the Blockchain network or possibilities for crowdfunding campaigns, but none of it is certain. It will take time to get unveiled for the general public.

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The potential that Bitcoin holds has been on for show time and time again, and to say that it is massive would be an understatement. If the team successfully solves the related issues plaguing other cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin can find itself at the centre of all-digital payment systems. The number of businesses to accept Bitcoin will increase drastically and there can come a day when Bitcoin would be used for small scale day-to-day transactions.

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There are many altcoins (alternative cryptocurrencies) that are aiming to achieve what Bitcoin had announced in its whitepaper. Each technology claims that they offer better transaction speed, less transactional limits, pseudonymity, programmable contracts (smart contracts) and fewer price charges, in some way or another. Coins like Monero (privacy), Ethereum (smart contracts) and Nano (scalable, energy saving and feeless) have managed to offer these benefits to an extent.

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Although, no official partnership has been announced by any business with Bitcoin, the popularity and originality of the technology are enough to help it grab the attention of many businesses worldwide. If some business accepts cryptocurrencies as a payment method, rest assured Bitcoin is always there at the top. Even Microsoft now allows users to deposit Bitcoin on their accounts (Microsoft, 2018) and companies like Expedia give their users the option to book hotels using Bitcoin (Street, 2014).

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Bitcoin’s community is very active and remains one of the strongest communities to date. Though the number of people that trade with Bitcoin has decreased drastically with time, many people are still ‘HODL-ing’ (holding/storing) the tokens in the hope of large returns on their investments.

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Satoshi Nakamoto is the pseudonym used for the mind behind the Bitcoin vision though nobody knows his real identity or whereabouts. The current lead developer of the Bitcoin network is Wladimir J. van der Laan (laanwj) who has been working on the current post since 2014. (Bitcoin Wiki, 2015).

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