Bitcoin

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer digital currency launched in January 2009 by a pseudonymous creator known as Satoshi Nakamoto. It runs on a public blockchain maintained by thousands of independent computers rather than a bank or company. Anyone can send bitcoin to anyone else in the world without asking permission, and every transaction is recorded on a shared ledger that is extremely difficult to alter.

The supply of bitcoin is capped at 21 million coins by the software rules. New coins enter circulation as a reward to miners who secure the network, and that reward is cut in half roughly every four years in an event called the halving. After the April 2024 halving the reward fell to 3.125 BTC per block, and the final bitcoin is expected to be mined around the year 2140.

The ticker symbol is BTC. One bitcoin can be divided into 100 million smaller units called satoshis, so you do not need to buy a whole coin. Bitcoin is often described as digital gold because of its scarcity, but its price is far more volatile than gold and can move 10 percent or more in a single day.