BTC, Bitcoin Bitcoin

Bitcoin (English: Bitcoin, abbreviation: BTC, currency symbol: ฿) is an electronic currency generated using open source P2P technology software. The concept of the virtual currency "Bitcoin" was first proposed in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto (possibly a pseudonym). Now Bitcoin also refers to the open source software designed and released based on Satoshi Nakamoto’s ideas and the entire P2P network built on it. As of May 31, 2013, the total value of all issued Bitcoins, converted into U.S. dollars based on market prices, exceeded $1.5 billion. Unlike most current currencies, the Bitcoin currency system exists independently and its operation does not rely on the support or credit guarantees of central banks, governments, and large enterprises. Bitcoin uses a distributed database spread across nodes throughout the P2P network to manage currency issuance, transactions and account balance information. Satoshi Nakamoto used the principles of cryptography to ensure that each Bitcoin node reaches a consensus in accordance with the established protocol, thereby ensuring the security of all aspects of currency circulation. For example, Bitcoin can only be used by its true owner, and only once. After the payment is completed, the original owner loses ownership of the share of Bitcoins. The total amount of Bitcoin currency gradually increased according to the designed rate, and the increase rate gradually slowed down, and finally reached the limit of 21 million in 2140. The distributed nature and decentralized design structure of P2P ensure that in theory it is impossible for any institution to manipulate the total amount of Bitcoin or create inflation. Globally, Bitcoin can be exchanged and traded through multiple online exchanges and service providers, or you can find exchange points offline and exchange them for cash or gold coins.

To put it simply, it is issued approximately every ten minutes. New Bitcoins are generated when each network node solves certain mathematical calculations (for example, creating a new block). This generation process is considered difficult to reproduce and proof of work. The reward for solving the problem is automatically adjusted so that in the first 4 years of the Bitcoin network, a total of 10,500,000 BTC will be generated. This amount is automatically halved every 4 years, which means that in years 4 to 8, 5,250,000 BTC will be generated, in years 8 to 12, only 2,625,000 BTC will be generated, and so on. By the end, the total number of Bitcoins generated was close to 21,000,000 BTC. In addition, there is a system established along with the network. On average every 10 minutes, the system attempts to collect new Bitcoins in blocks created on the network. The difficulty of creating new Bitcoins varies with the number of people involved in trying to generate new Bitcoins. The entire network agrees on implementing these behaviors based on the time it took to generate the first 2016 blocks. Therefore, the difficulty factor is related to the average computing resources invested in generating these new Bitcoins over the time it took to generate these earliest blocks. The probability that someone "discovers" a block is the ratio of the computing resources used by that person to the computing resources of all those simultaneously generating blocks on the network.

Technically, 1 Bitcoin is divided into 8 decimal places based on current data structures. This means that the current smallest unit of Bitcoin is 0.00000001 BTC. If there is a need for Bitcoin to be divided into smaller units in the future, the community will need to discuss how to achieve smaller divisions.

The last block to produce Bitcoin will be block #6,929,999, which will occur around AD 2140. At that time, the total number of Bitcoins in circulation will remain constant at 20,999,999,9769 BTC. Even if Bitcoin’s allowed precision is expanded from the current 8 decimal places, there will always be just under 21 million Bitcoins in circulation eventually (assuming other parameters remain unchanged). For example, if 16 decimal places of precision were introduced, the final Bitcoin total would be 20999999.999999999496 BTC