What is Bitcoin?

Symbol: BTC · Market cap rank: #1

Short answer

Bitcoin (BTC) is a cryptocurrency currently ranked #1 by market capitalisation. It is classified as L1.

Source: isthiscoinascam.com

Overview

Bitcoin is a decentralized cryptocurrency created in 2009 by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. It enables peer-to-peer electronic cash transactions without intermediaries and records transactions on a public blockchain secured by Proof of Work mining using the SHA-256 cryptographic algorithm. Transactions are grouped into blocks that are added approximately every 10 minutes through mining, where computers compete to solve mathematical puzzles.

Bitcoin has a fixed supply cap of 21 million coins, with programmatic halvings every four years that reduce miner rewards. Its governance model is decentralized and does not describe an issuer-led decision process in the provided text. Bitcoin value is described as coming from solving the double-spending problem without trusted intermediaries, aiming for censorship resistance and permissionless access. The ecosystem described includes Ordinals for NFT-like functionality on Bitcoin and BRC-20 tokens using ordinal inscriptions, and Babylon, which allows Bitcoin holders to stake BTC to help secure Proof of Stake chains.

Launched: 2009

Scam-risk analysis

Bitcoin is rated B on isthiscoinascam.com. Is Bitcoin a scam?

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