What is Bitcoin?
DefinitionBitcoin (BTC) is the first cryptocurrency: a digital currency launched in 2009 that runs on its own proof-of-work blockchain, with no central issuer and a hard limit of 21 million coins.
How Bitcoin works
Bitcoin works through a network of nodes that each keep a full copy of its blockchain, and miners who compete to add a new block about every 10 minutes. The miner who finds a valid block receives newly created bitcoin plus the fees of the transactions inside it.
Bitcoin was described in a 2008 white paper by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. One bitcoin divides into 100 million satoshis (sats), so you can own and send small fractions.
Why the 21 million limit matters
Bitcoin’s supply is fixed by its code at 21 million coins. New coins enter circulation only as mining rewards, and that reward is cut in half every 210,000 blocks, roughly every four years, in an event called the halving. The last halving took place in April 2024 at block 840,000.
Because no central bank can print more, many people treat bitcoin as a long-term store of value. Its price is still volatile and can fall sharply.
Bitcoin addresses and fees
Bitcoin fees depend on how much block space a transaction takes and how busy the network is, not on the amount sent. Moving 0.001 BTC can cost the same as moving 10 BTC.
A Bitcoin address is where you receive BTC, and its first characters show its type:
- 1…: legacy addresses, the original format
- 3…: script addresses, often used for nested SegWit
- bc1q…: native SegWit, the common modern format with lower fees
- bc1p…: Taproot, a newer format
Bitcoin in Waletifi
Waletifi gives you a native SegWit (bc1q) Bitcoin address and shows the network fee before you confirm. Your bitcoin is backed up by the same standard 24-word BIP39 phrase as the rest of your wallet, so it can also be restored in other standard Bitcoin wallets.
