$BTC Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is the first decentralized cryptocurrency. Based on a free-market ideology, bitcoin was invented in 2008 when an unknown entity published a white paper 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

Commonly used logo of bitcoin

DenominationsPluralbitcoinsSymbol₿

(Unicode: U+20BF ₿ BITCOIN SIGN)[1]CodeBTCPrecision10−8Subunits 1⁄1000millibitcoin 1⁄1000000microbitcoin 1⁄100000000satoshi[a][2]DevelopmentOriginal author(s)Satoshi NakamotoWhite paper"Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System"Implementation(s)Bitcoin CoreInitial release0.1.0 / 9 January 2009 (16 years ago)Latest release29.0 / 14 April 2025 (30 days ago)[3]Code repositorygithub.com/bitcoin/bitcoinDevelopment statusActiveWritten inC++Source modelFree and open-source softwareLicenseMIT License