Bitcoin: World’s First Cryptocurrency

Abstract

Bitcoin is a virtual currency constructed using cryptographic principles and conceived by the blockchain and proof-of-work mechanism in a distributed and decentralised environment; hence it is also called cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is the world’s first cryptocurrency, which Satoshi Nakamoto proposed and developed between mid-2008 and early 2009. The most notable works that influenced Nakamoto in developing Bitcoin are perhaps Bit gold and B-money, two independently invented distributed digital money schemes published in 1998. The mining of Bitcoin is different from the mining of gold because in the Bitcoin process miners act as verifiers of the transaction rather than mining the coin like gold. A Bitcoin address is meant to be a single-use identifier for each transaction, although the same address can be used multiple times. Bitcoin uses a Forth-like stack-based scripting system that is simple, not ­Turing-complete and does not have loops.