Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC or XBT; sign: ₿) is a protocol which implements a highly available, public, and decentralized ledger. In order to update the ledger, a user must prove they control an entry in the ledger. The protocol specifies that the entry indicates an amount of a token, bitcoin with a minuscule b. The user can update the ledger, assigning some of their bitcoin to another entry in the ledger. Because the token has characteristics of money, it can be thought of as a digital currency.Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain. The cryptocurrency was invented in 2008 by an unknown person or group of people using the name Satoshi Nakamoto. The currency began use in 2009, when its implementation was released as open-source software.: ch. 1
The word "bitcoin" was defined in a white paper published on October 31, 2008. It is a compound of the words bit and coin.Bitcoin is legal in seven of the top ten world economies by GDP in 2022. The Library of Congress reports that, as of November 2021, nine countries have fully banned bitcoin use, while a further forty-two have implicitly banned it. A few governments have used bitcoin in some capacity. El Salvador has adopted Bitcoin as legal tender, although use by merchants remains low. Ukraine has accepted cryptocurrency donations to fund the resistance to the 2022 Russian invasion. Iran has used bitcoin to bypass sanctions. In the United States, there is "no intention" to ban Bitcoin.Bitcoin has been described as an economic bubble by at least eight recipients of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.The environmental impact of bitcoin is worth noting. Its proof-of-work algorithm for bitcoin mining is designed to be computationally difficult, which requires the consumption of increasing quantities of electricity, the generation of which has contributed to climate change. According to the University of Cambridge, bitcoin has emitted an estimated 200 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide since its launch, or about 0.04% of all carbon dioxide released since 2009.Bitcoin miners have an economic incentive to use the cheapest forms of energy. Renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy over time, so it is in a Bitcoin miner's economic interest to use the cheaper renewable energy when possible. For instance, the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Virunga National Park, in eastern Congo, Africa pays for its operations, using a profitable Bitcoin mining operation powered by the Park's hydroelectric plant. Oil and gas giant Exxon mines Bitcoin using the natural gas flared by oil mining operations to generate their electricity. Mining Bitcoin this way makes use of an otherwise "monumental waste of a valuable natural resource". Still other miners reduce their overall energy bill by using the heat generated by their computers to heat their homes, or hot tubs.
View More On Wikipedia.org
