Bitcoin is a decentralized electronic currency conceived in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto. The name also applies to the protocol designed by the same author as the P2P network that supports it. Unlike most currencies, Bitcoin confidence does not depend on any central transmitter but uses a working test system to prevent double spending and reach consensus among all nodes.
Bitcoin is a relatively new project that is in progress. For this reason, its developers recommend caution and treat it as experimental software.
Since the 1970s, the use of digital signatures based on public key cryptography has provided strong property control. Based on public key cryptography in 1998 Wei Dai b-Money describes a decentralized solution to the problem of electronic payments. Later, Nick Szabo and Hal Finney extend and complement the work of Wei Dai.
In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto publishes an article in the list metzdowd.com cryptography which describes the Bitcoin protocol. On January 3, 2009 the Bitcoin network is operational with the publication of the first client, open source, and the creation of the first bitcoins. Until the invention of Bitcoin was required that all e-commerce payments were channeled through trusted centralized institutions, typically banks and other financial companies, which managed the monitoring of all transactions.
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