What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is digital money that works completely without banks—and belongs to no one. No country, company, or individual can control Bitcoin. It’s made possible by a brilliant idea: computers all over the world are connected and record all transactions transparently. That means anyone can send, receive, or store Bitcoin at any time—without any middleman.
In autumn 2008, an unknown person using the name Satoshi Nakamoto introduced the concept of Bitcoin on a cryptography mailing list. In early 2009, the Bitcoin network was launched. At the end of 2010, Satoshi disappeared without a trace—until today, nobody knows who he or she really was.
Since then, Bitcoin has grown relentlessly and is now seen as digital gold. More and more people and companies use Bitcoin for saving, payments, or new innovations. Maybe one day, Bitcoin will be as normal as dollars, euros, or francs.
The very first real-world Bitcoin payment was on May 22, 2010: a programmer named Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 Bitcoin for two pizzas. Today, this “Bitcoin Pizza Day” is legendary—because at today’s prices, that’s around 1 billion US dollars!