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For the colloquial expression for coinage, see Bit (money).
"₿" redirects here. Not to be confused with "฿" for Thai baht.
Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is the first decentralized cryptocurrency. Based on a free-market ideology, the bitcoin white paper was published in 2008 by an unknown entity under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto.[5] Use of bitcoin as a currency began in 2009,[6] with the release of its open-source implementation.[7]: ch. 1 In 2021, El Salvador adopted it as legal tender.[4] It is mostly seen as an investment and has been described by some scholars as an economic bubble.[8] As bitcoin is pseudonymous, its use by criminals has attracted the attention of regulators, leading to its ban by several countries as of 2021.[9]
Bitcoin
Prevailing bitcoin logo
Commonly used logo of bitcoin
Denominations
Plural
bitcoins
Symbol
₿
(Unicode: U+20BF ₿ BITCOIN SIGN)[1]
Code
BTC
Precision
10−8
Subunits
1⁄1000
millibitcoin
1⁄1000000
microbitcoin
1⁄100000000
satoshi[a][2]
Development
Original author(s)
Satoshi Nakamoto
White paper
"Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System"
Implementation(s)
Bitcoin Core
Initial release
0.1.0 / 9 January 2009 (16 years ago)
Latest release
29.0 / 14 April 2025 (15 days ago)[3]
Code repository
github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
Development status
Active
Written in
C++
Source model
Free and open-source software
License
MIT License
Ledger
Ledger start
3 January 2009 (16 years ago)
Timestamping scheme
Proof of work (partial hash inversion)
Hash function
SHA-256 (two rounds)
Issuance schedule
Decentralized (block reward)
Initially ₿50 per block, halved every 210,000 blocks
Block reward
₿3.125 (as of 2024)
Block time
10 minutes
Circulating supply
₿19,591,231 (as of 6 January 2024)
Supply limit
₿21,000,000[b]
Valuation
Exchange rate
Floating
Demographics
Official user(s)
El Salvad
