#牛市季来临 Bitcoin (BTC) is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency designed to serve as a medium of exchange independent of any central authority. BTC can be transferred electronically in a secure, verifiable, and immutable manner.

BTC was launched in 2009 as the "first virtual digital currency to solve the double-spending problem" by timestamping transactions before broadcasting transaction information to all nodes in the Bitcoin network. The Bitcoin protocol provides a solution to the Byzantine fault tolerance problem through the blockchain network structure, a concept originally created by Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta in 1991.

The Bitcoin white paper was published in 2008 by an individual or a group under the pseudonym "Satoshi Nakamoto," whose true identity has yet to be verified.

The Bitcoin protocol uses a proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm based on SHA-256d to achieve network consensus. Its network aims for a block time of 10 minutes, with a maximum supply of 21 million tokens, and the rate of token generation decreases over time. To prevent fluctuations in congestion times, the network's block difficulty is adjusted based on an algorithm derived from the congestion times of the past 2016 blocks.

The block size limit is 1 megabyte, and the Bitcoin protocol supports a multi-layer infrastructure for Lightning Network payment channels, as well as Segregated Witness, which is a soft fork that enhances functionality as a solution for network scalability.