User:Esquivalience/sandbox3

Esquivalience/sandbox3
Prevailing bitcoin logo
Unit
Symbol₿[b]‎
Denominations
Subunit
 10−3millibitcoin[2]
 10−6microbitcoin; bit[4]
 10−8satoshi[5]
Symbol
 millibitcoin[2]mBTC
 microbitcoin; bit[4]μBTC
CoinsUnspent outputs of transactions denominated in any multiple of satoshis[3]: ch. 5 
Demographics
Date of introduction3 January 2009; 15 years ago (2009-01-03)
User(s)Worldwide
Issuance
AdministrationDecentralized[6][7]
Valuation
Supply growth12.5 bitcoins per block (approximately every ten minutes) until mid 2020,[8] and then afterwards 6.25 bitcoins per block for 4 years until next halving. This halving continues until 2110–40, when 21 million bitcoins will have been issued.
  1. ^ Unofficial.
  2. ^ The symbol was encoded in Unicode version 10.0 at position U+20BF ₿ BITCOIN SIGN in the Currency Symbols block in June 2017.[1]
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Bitcoin explained in 3 minutes

Bitcoin is a worldwide cryptocurrency and digital payment system[9]: 3  called the first decentralized digital currency, as the system works without a central repository or single administrator.[9]: 1 [10] It was invented by an unknown programmer, or a group of programmers, under the name Satoshi Nakamoto[11] and released as open-source software in 2009.[12] The system is peer-to-peer, and transactions take place between users directly, without an intermediary.[9]: 4  These transactions are verified by network nodes and recorded in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain.

Bitcoins are created as a reward for mining. They can be exchanged for other currencies,[13] products, and services. As of February 2015, over 100,000 merchants and vendors accepted bitcoin as payment.[14] Bitcoin can also be held as an investment. According to research produced by Cambridge University in 2017, there are 2.9 to 5.8 million unique users using a cryptocurrency wallet, most of them using bitcoin.[15]

  1. ^ "Unicode 10.0.0". Unicode Consortium. 20 June 2017. Archived from the original on 20 June 2017. Retrieved 20 June 2017.
  2. ^ Siluk, Shirley (2 June 2013). "June 2 "M Day" promotes millibitcoin as unit of choice". CoinDesk. Archived from the original on 7 August 2017. Retrieved 25 May 2017.
  3. ^ Andreas M. Antonopoulos (April 2014). Mastering Bitcoin. Unlocking Digital Crypto-Currencies. O'Reilly Media. ISBN 978-1-4493-7404-4.
  4. ^ Garzik, Jeff (2 May 2014). "BitPay, Bitcoin, and where to put that decimal point". Archived from the original on 17 November 2015. Retrieved 20 November 2015.
  5. ^ Jason Mick (12 June 2011). "Cracking the Bitcoin: Digging Into a $131M USD Virtual Currency". Daily Tech. Archived from the original on 20 January 2013. Retrieved 30 September 2012.
  6. ^ "Statement of Jennifer Shasky Calvery, Director Financial Crimes Enforcement Network United States Department of the Treasury Before the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on National Security and International Trade and Finance Subcommittee on Economic Policy" (PDF). fincen.gov. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. 19 November 2013. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2016. Retrieved 1 June 2014.
  7. ^ Empson, Rip (28 March 2013). "Bitcoin: How An Unregulated, Decentralized Virtual Currency Just Became A Billion Dollar Market". TechCrunch. AOL inc. Archived from the original on 9 October 2016. Retrieved 8 October 2016.
  8. ^ Ron Dorit; Adi Shamir (2012). "Quantitative Analysis of the Full Bitcoin Transaction Graph" (PDF). Cryptology ePrint Archive. Archived (PDF) from the original on 21 October 2012. Retrieved 18 October 2012.
  9. ^ a b c Jerry Brito & Andrea Castillo (2013). "Bitcoin: A Primer for Policymakers" (PDF). Mercatus Center. George Mason University. Archived (PDF) from the original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
  10. ^ Sagona-Stophel, Katherine. "Bitcoin 101 white paper" (PDF). Thomson Reuters. Retrieved 20 November 2015.[permanent dead link]
  11. ^ S., L. (2 November 2015). "Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?". The Economist. The Economist Newspaper Limited. Archived from the original on 21 August 2016. Retrieved 23 September 2016.
  12. ^ Davis, Joshua (10 October 2011). "The Crypto-Currency: Bitcoin and its mysterious inventor". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 1 November 2014. Retrieved 31 October 2014.
  13. ^ "What is Bitcoin?". CNN Money. Archived from the original on 31 October 2015. Retrieved 16 November 2015.
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference 100tmerchants was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ Hileman, Garrick; Rauchs, Michel. "Global Cryptocurrency Benchmarking Study" (PDF). Cambridge University. Archived (PDF) from the original on 10 April 2017. Retrieved 14 April 2017.