Skip to main content
Have you been waiting for our Ramadhan Promo? How about this? Book for your photo shot and get 50% price slashed on all casual makeup and gele. Makeup: Glamby Zee Photography: Jessy Photos Graphics: SmartEx Designed: Francis Akujobi

What you should know about Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is a worldwide cryptocurrency and digital payment system called the first decentralized digital currency, since the system works without a central repository or single administrator. It was invented by an unknown programmer, or a group of programmers, under the name Satoshi Nakamoto and released as open-source software in 2009. The system is peer-to-peer, and transactions take place between users directly, without an intermediary.[13]:4 These transactions are verified by network nodes and recorded in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain.
Besides being created as a reward for mining, bitcoin can be exchanged for other currencies, products, and services. As of February 2015, over 100,000 merchants and vendors accepted bitcoin as payment. 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. On 1 August 2017 bitcoin split into two derivative digital currencies, the classic bitcoin (BTC) and the Bitcoin Cash (BCH).

Terminology

The word bitcoin occurred in the white paper that defined bitcoin published on 31 October 2008. It is a compound of the words bit and coin. The white paper frequently uses the shorter coin.
There is no uniform convention for bitcoin capitalization. Some sources use Bitcoin, capitalized, to refer to the technology and network and bitcoin, lowercase, to refer to the unit of account. The Wall Street Journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and the Oxford English Dictionary advocate use of lowercase bitcoin in all cases, a convention which this article follows.

Units

The unit of account of the bitcoin system is bitcoin. As of 2014, symbols used to represent bitcoin are BTC,  XBT, and (U+20BF, BitcoinSign.svg). Small amounts of bitcoin used as alternative units are millibitcoin (mBTC), microbitcoin (µBTC, sometimes referred to as bit), and satoshi. Named in homage to bitcoin's creator, a satoshi is the smallest amount within bitcoin representing 0.00000001 bitcoin, one hundred millionth of a bitcoin. A millibitcoin equals to 0.001 bitcoin, one thousandth of a bitcoin. One microbitcoin equals to 0.000001 bitcoin, one millionth of a bitcoin.

Popular posts from this blog

Mastercard Hints at Plans for Blockchain Settlement System

Mastercard may be looking to integrate blockchain into its payments infrastructure. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published a  new application  from the financial giant this week that outlines a solution for a "uniform settlement system" – one that would help ease some of the friction involved with business-to-business payments. Specific issues cited in the application include growing data storage demands and the overall volume of transactions. Notably, Mastercard suggests in the text that such a system could include a blockchain-based ledger of transactions. As the application explains: "In some embodiments, the ledger may be a blockchain configured to store the associated data. ... In the system, the data values may include the purchase orders, invoices, transaction data, and other data stored in the ledger as discussed herein." Mastercard clarified that the blockchain would be able to automatically note all changes made to the ...
Read more

Institutional Cryptoeconomics: A New Model for a New Century

Chris Berg, Sinclair Davidson and Jason Potts are with the RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub in Melbourne, Australia. In this opinion piece, the authors discuss why blockchain may be more disruptive than the so-called 'general purpose technologies' that transformed society in recent centuries.  While cryptoeconomics is already a vibrant research field, the study of the blockchain must not be left solely to computer scientists and game theorists. The rollout of blockchain technology raises complex questions in economics, public policy, law, sociology and political economy. What we call "institutional cryptoeconomics" starts from a simple premise – the blockchain is not just a new general purpose technology, it is a new institutional technology. This may sound like a pedantic distinction, but the difference between these two conceptions is profound. General purpose technologies allow us to do what we already do better, faster and cheaper. Economists und...
Read more

Free Excel course on edx

You shouldn't have to pay to learn! Master the basics of Excel in just 4 weeks in this introductory online course from Microsoft. Learn More   Free Excel course on edx Join edX for free today!
Read more