Bitcoin FAQ

Bitcoin was created by a person or group using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. The real identity behind this name has never been confirmed. On October 31, 2008, Satoshi published the Bitcoin whitepaper — a technical document outlining a peer-to-peer digital cash system. They launched the Bitcoin network in January 2009 and communicated with other developers until April 2011, when they went silent. To this day, the world's most famous anonymous person remains unidentified.

It is unknown. Some researchers believe the breadth of expertise in the Bitcoin whitepaper and codebase — cryptography, distributed systems, game theory, and economics — suggests a small team rather than a single individual. Others point to the consistency of writing style and the tight communications as evidence of one person. No theory has been proven. The question remains genuinely open.

Satoshi never stated their reasons directly. Most analysts believe the anonymity was intentional and strategic: a named founder could be targeted by governments (digital currency threatens state monetary control), hacked, arrested, or become a central point of failure for the project's credibility. Bitcoin's decentralized design is philosophically aligned with the idea that its creator should not be a central authority. The anonymity may itself be part of the design.

No. Craig Wright, an Australian computer scientist, publicly claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto in 2016. However, his claim has been widely disputed by the cryptocurrency community, and he has repeatedly failed to provide the simplest and most definitive proof: a cryptographic signature from Satoshi's original Bitcoin wallet. In 2024, a UK court formally ruled that Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto.

Researcher Sergio Demian Lerner estimated in 2013 that Satoshi mined approximately 1 million BTC in the early days of the network, when they were the primary or only miner. This estimate is based on analysis of the nonce patterns in early blocks. These coins have never been moved, despite being worth tens of billions of dollars at peak prices. Their continued inactivity is considered by many to be one of the strongest arguments that Satoshi is either unable to access them, has passed away, or has made a principled decision not to use them.

Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that operates without a central bank or single administrator. Transactions are verified by a distributed network of computers (nodes) and recorded on a public ledger called the blockchain. Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency and remains the largest by market capitalization. It can be sent peer-to-peer without an intermediary, and its supply is mathematically capped at 21 million coins.

Bitcoin solved the "double-spend problem" for digital currency — how to prevent someone from spending the same digital coin twice without a central authority to verify transactions. Previous digital cash systems required a trusted bank or intermediary. Bitcoin solved this using a distributed ledger (blockchain) and a proof-of-work consensus mechanism, meaning no single entity needs to be trusted because the rules are enforced by mathematics and the collective network.

The Bitcoin whitepaper is a 9-page technical document published by Satoshi Nakamoto on October 31, 2008, titled "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System." It describes the technical architecture of Bitcoin — including transactions, the blockchain, proof-of-work mining, and the incentive structure — and remains the founding document of the entire cryptocurrency industry. It is available for free at bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf. We have a full plain-English breakdown available on our Whitepaper page.

The first peer-to-peer Bitcoin transaction occurred on January 12, 2009, when Satoshi Nakamoto sent 10 BTC to cryptographer Hal Finney. The most famous early transaction, however, is "Bitcoin Pizza Day" — May 22, 2010 — when programmer Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 BTC for two pizzas. Those coins would later be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Bitcoin's supply is hard-capped at exactly 21 million coins. This limit is enforced by Bitcoin's code and cannot be changed without the consensus of the entire network — which would effectively mean creating a different cryptocurrency. New Bitcoin is created through mining (block rewards), but the reward halves every ~210,000 blocks (roughly every 4 years). The last Bitcoin is projected to be mined around the year 2140. As of 2025, over 19.5 million Bitcoin have already been mined.

A Bitcoin halving is a scheduled event built into Bitcoin's code that cuts the block reward for miners in half. It occurs every 210,000 blocks (approximately every 4 years). The first halving in 2012 reduced the reward from 50 BTC to 25 BTC. The most recent halving in April 2024 reduced it from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. Halvings reduce the rate at which new Bitcoin enters supply and have historically preceded significant price increases, though past performance does not predict future results.

Bitcoin's legal status varies by country. In most of the world — including the United States, European Union, UK, Canada, Australia, and Japan — Bitcoin is legal to own and trade, though it is subject to capital gains tax. El Salvador and the Central African Republic have made Bitcoin legal tender. A small number of countries have banned or severely restricted it. Always check the laws in your specific jurisdiction. This site does not provide legal or financial advice.

A blockchain is a distributed ledger — a record of transactions shared across a network of computers. Each group of transactions is bundled into a "block," and each block is cryptographically linked to the previous one, forming a chain. This structure makes it extremely difficult to alter historical records, since changing any block would require redoing the work for all subsequent blocks. Bitcoin's blockchain is public, meaning anyone can view the entire transaction history. Blockchain technology has since been applied to many fields beyond cryptocurrency.