Cryptocurrencies have gone from a curiosity to a sizable force in finance, technology and culture, making them almost impossible to ignore. A range of players have embraced crypto, from individual speculators to major financial institutions, despite how volatile they are.. Some have generated vast riches, while others have destroyed huge amounts of wealth.
When people talk about crypto, they may be referring to one of many different ideas and companies. The industry is booming and spawning an abundance of projects and new terms to go with them. The topic can be confusing, but the concept has also become ubiquitous. Learning the right terminology can help.
What is a Bitcoin?
A Bitcoin is a digital token that can be sent electronically from one user to another, anywhere in the world.
A Bitcoin can be divided out to eight decimal places, so you can send someone 0.00000001 Bitcoin. This smallest fraction of a Bitcoin — the penny of the Bitcoin world — is referred to as a Satoshi, named after the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is also the name of the payment network on which this form of digital currency is stored and moved. Unlike traditional payment networks such as Visa, the Bitcoin network is not run by a single company or person. The system is run by a decentralized network of computers around the world that keep track of all Bitcoin transactions, similar to the way Wikipedia is maintained by a decentralized network of writers and editors.
Bitcoin was introduced in 2008 by a creator who goes by the name Satoshi Nakamoto, who communicated with the rest of the world only by email and social messaging. While several people have been identified as possibly being Satoshi, the identity of the real Satoshi has not been confirmed.
Satoshi created the original rules of the Bitcoin network and then shared the software with the rest of the world in 2009. The inventor largely disappeared from the public two years later. Once Satoshi had released the software, anyone could download and use it. This means Satoshi has no more control over the network now than anyone else
