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September 06, 2013, 10:31:18 AM
Last edit: September 06, 2013, 12:11:11 PM by amincd |
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Here's what I have so far:
Who created Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is one of the first implementations the first fully functional implementation of a concept called "crypto-currency", which was first described in 1998 in a proposal by Wei Dai on the cypherpunks mailing list, suggesting the idea of a new form of money that uses cryptography to control its creation and transactions, rather than relying a central authority. The first Bitcoin specification and proof of concept was published in 2009 in a cryptography mailing list by Satoshi Nakamoto. Satoshi left the project in late 2010 without revealing much about himself. The community has since grown exponentially with many developers working on Bitcoin.
The anonymity of Satoshi often raiseds unjustified concerns due to a misunderstanding of the open-source nature of Bitcoin. The protocol and software have been published in such a way that any developer around the world can review the code and make different their own modified version of the Bitcoin software. Just like current developers, Satoshi had limited influence 's influence was limited to the changes he made being adopted by others and therefore he did not control Bitcoin. Trying to find who invented todayn today The identity of Bitcoin's inventor is probably as relevant today as trying to find who invented the identity of the person who invented paper.
Who controls the Bitcoin network?
Just like nobody owns the technology behind email, nobody owns the Bitcoin network. Bitcoin is controlled by all Bitcoin users around the world. While developers are improving the software, they can't force a change in the Bitcoin protocol because all users are free to choose what software and version they use. In order to stay compatible with each other, all users need to use software complying with the same rules. Bitcoin can only work correctly with a complete consensus between all users. Therefore, all users and developers have a strong incentive to adopt and protect this consensus. This also means that if something is wrong, all users and developers have a strong incentive to help fixing the problem.
How does Bitcoin work?
From a user perspective, Bitcoin is simply a mobile app or computer program that provides personal Bitcoin addresses and allows one to send and receive bitcoins with them. That pretty much sums up how Bitcoin works for most users.
Behind the scenes, the Bitcoin network is sharing a public ledger called the "block chain". This ledger contains every transaction ever processed, allowing a user's computer to verify the validity of each transaction. Users can create an unlimited number of Bitcoin addresses. These addresses are used to define where bitcoins are sent to and where they come from. The authenticity of each transaction is protected by digital signatures corresponding to the sending address, allowing all users to have full control over sending bitcoins from their own Bitcoin addresses. In addition, anyone can process transactions using the computing power of specialized hardware and earn a reward in bitcoins for this service. This is often called "mining". To learn more about Bitcoin, you can consult the dedicated page and the original paper.
Is Bitcoin really used by people?
Yes. There is a growing number of businesses and individuals using Bitcoin, including brick and mortar businesses like restaurants and popular online services such as Namecheap, Reddit, WordPress and Flattr. While Bitcoin remains a relatively new phenomenon, it is growing fast. At the end of August 2013, the value of all bitcoins in circulation was in excess of US$ 1.5 billion with millions of dollars exchanged daily through up to 70,000 transactions.
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How difficult is it to make a Bitcoin payment?
Bitcoin payments are easier to make than debit or credit card purchases, and can be received without any merchant account. Payments are made from a wallet application, either on your computer or smartphone, by entering the recipient's address, the payment amount, and pressing send. To make it easier to enter a recipient's address, many wallets can obtain the recipient's address by scanning a QR code or touching two phones together with NFC technology, and the address can also be saved in your address book also have an address book where the address can be saved for later use. Of course, a simple copy/paste works too.
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