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Bitcoin: The mother of all cryptocurrencies

On January 12 2009, an individual, or group, using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, announced that the first Bitcoin transaction had taken place.

Ten Bitcoins had been magically transferred between Satoshi and cryptography legend Hal Finney.

It was the beginning of a revolution which, to this day, promises to change how humankind deals with money, finance and how we do business.

There’s a lot to cover when it comes to Bitcoin. In fact, there are massive wikis devoted to just one topic: the world’s first and still most valuable cryptocurrency.

In this article we take a brief look at this pioneering technology, introducing basic concepts to get you started with Bitcoin.

It all started with a legacy financial market that wasn’t living up to everyone’s expectations. In fact a massive crisis was building up at the heart of the financial sector: the traditional banking system.

Financial Crisis of 2008

Bitcoin appeared at a time when the traditional markets were collapsing.

The 2008 crash exposed a fragile financial system that required massive State intervention in order to recover and become functional again.

In this context, a new kind of money appeared, and its very first record contained a message that reflected the reality of the time:

“The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”

This now legendary quote was stamped forever on Bitcoin’s very first mined block.

History Made

Since the blockchain on which Bitcoin is built is immutable, Satoshi’s message is coded there forever, carved in cryptographic stone.

Every first generation cryptocurrency, including Litecoin, Dogecoin, Reddcoin and hundreds of others were somehow derived from Bitcoin with slight variations.

Find complete historical and technical data, software development information and comprehensive documentation about all aspects of Bitcoin on the official Bitcoin wiki.

Bitcoin in a Nutshell

Mineable? Yes. Bitcoin is the world’s first mineable cryptocurrency.

(In fact, Bitcoin created the concept of cryptocurrency mining.)

Hashing algorithm: SHA256

Bitcoin will pay block rewards until the year 2140.

Cryptocurrency Symbol: BTC

Maximum supply: 21.000.000 BTC

Current circulating supply (mid 2018) : 17.063.812 BTC

Links

Commented Bitcoin Source Code

Note: This article has been artificially backdated to January 9, 2009 as a tribute to the timestamp on the first Bitcoin ever mined : the genesis block.

About the Author
Published by Crypto Bill - Bill is a writer, geek, crypto-curious polyheurist, a dog's best friend and coffee addict. Information security expert, encryption software with interests in P2P networking, decentralized applications (dApps), smart contracts and crypto based payment solutions. Learn More About Us