What Is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a decentralized peer-to-peer payment network running on blockchain technology. The first to implement the concept of cryptocurrency, Satoshi Nakamoto (whose actual identity remains unknown) published the specification and proof of concept for Bitcoin in a cryptography mailing list in 2009 and passed the project on to the hands of the entire community of users and developers in 2010 as an open-source project. Thus, no one entity today fully owns, controls, or designs Bitcoin, and everyone can take part in the project in various capacities. Bitcoin is an SHA-256 POW coin with almost 21,000,000 total minable coins. The block time is 10 minutes. See below for a full selection of Bitcoin markets where you can trade Bitcoin for other cryptocurrencies, US dollars, and other fiat currencies.