Bitcoin

Bitcoin is the largest, oldest and most well-known cryptocurrency. Bitcoin was created by an anonymous person who is known online as Satoshi Nakamoto. Satoshi Nakamato published a white paper in 2008 with the subject "Bitcoin: a peer-to-peer electronic money system". A peer-to-peer electronic money system, what exactly is that? Bitcoin makes it possible to transact online from one party to another without needing a financial institution. As an example: You want to transfer € 100, - to a knowledge in Australia, through the traditional way of working your transaction would come through various financial institutions and take several days. And then we have not even mentioned the transaction costs involved. With Bitcoin you do not have this problem, within a few minutes and at low transaction costs you can transfer value from party A to B. No bank that comes with it. Bitcoin makes use of blockchain technology.

In 2009, Bitcoin will be used for the first time when Nakamato will send ten Bitcoin to Hal Finney. Hal Finney became interested in the idea after reading the whitepaper. He approached Nakamoto online and the two decided to continue working together on the development of the project.

The team that is currently working on the development of Bitcoin consists of people who voluntarily work on the project and are paid with donations from the community. In addition, there are companies that have hired developers to work on Bitcoin. The most famous Bitcoin developers besides the by now disappeared inventor Satoshi Nakamoto are Wladimir van de Laan and Pieter Wuille. The Bitcoin team changes a lot because of different perceptions about where the future of Bitcoin lies. One camp wants to stay as close as possible to Nakamoto's philosophy and the other camp says that this will be the end of Bitcoin and that it needs to be innovated. What sometimes happens during these situations is that team members split off and start their own crypto. The best known example of this is Bitcoin Cash.

Now in 2018, Bitcoin has grown into a cryptocurrency with more than 300,000 transactions per day. In total, 21 million Bitcoin will come into circulation. The top 100 richest wallets together have about 15% of all Bitcoin currently in circulation.