A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008)
Online payments required trusted third parties (banks). This means higher fees, reversible transactions, and no true peer-to-peer payments.
Bitcoin enables direct payments between parties without banks. No intermediaries = lower costs, faster transactions, global access.
A chain of blocks containing transactions. Each block links to the previous one, creating an unchangeable history of all transactions.
Miners solve complex math puzzles to add new blocks. This requires computational power, making it expensive to attack the network.
Each transaction is signed with your private key. Only you can spend your bitcoin, and everyone can verify it's authentic.
The network's consensus ensures you can't spend the same bitcoin twice. The longest chain is the valid history.
No single authority controls Bitcoin. Thousands of nodes worldwide maintain and verify the network together.
Miners earn new bitcoins and transaction fees. This motivates them to secure the network and process transactions honestly.
Transactions are public, but identities are hidden behind addresses. You can see the flow of money, but not who owns it.