Bitcoin (BTC)

Overview

Bitcoin is a Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System designed to enable trustless, censorship-resistant, and borderless value exchange without reliance on central authorities. It introduced decentralized digital money and established the foundation for the entire blockchain and cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Launch Year: 2009
Origin: Original
Team: Satoshi Nakamoto (unknown)

Technical Details

Distributed Ledger Technology: Blockchain
Consensus Protocol: Proof of Work (PoW)
Consensus Mechanism: Nakamoto Consensus
Hashing Algorithm: SHA-256
Block Time: 10 minutes
Transaction Finality: ≈ 60 minutes (after 6 confirmations, standard for high-value transactions)
Max TPS Achieved: ≈ 7 TPS
Theoretical TPS Capacity: ≈ 10 TPS
Average Transaction Fee: ≈ $5 (varies with network congestion)

Tokenomics

Circulating Supply: ≈ 19,932,587 BTC
Max Supply: 21,000,000 BTC
Distribution Model: Fair launch with no pre-mine, ICO, or VC allocation. Early mining rewarded participants from day one. Block rewards halve every 210,000 blocks (~4 years).
Issue Price: $0.003 (first market price in 2010)

Decentralization

High — Bitcoin is open-source and permissionless, allowing anyone to mine, run nodes, and contribute to development without central control.

Security

High — Secured by the largest Proof of Work network with immense hashpower and over a decade of operation. The only notable event was a temporary chain split in 2013 due to a version incompatibility, resolved within hours.

Energy Efficiency

Low — Bitcoin's Proof of Work mining consumes significant energy, estimated around 130–180 TWh per year (≈0.6% of global electricity). Each transaction can indirectly represent 400–800 kWh of energy usage due to global miner competition.