Topic · Bitcoin
What is Bitcoin, and why does it exist?
In short
Bitcoin is a digital money that no government or company controls. It was launched in January 2009 by a pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, to send value over the internet without a bank in the middle. Its supply is capped at 21 million coins, which is why many people see it as a hedge against money that keeps losing value.
Key facts
- Created by
- Satoshi Nakamoto (a pseudonym)
- White paper
- 31 October 2008
- Network launched
- 3 January 2009
- Maximum supply
- 21 million bitcoin
- New issuance
- Halves every 210,000 blocks, about every four years; the latest halving was in April 2024
- Smallest unit
- 1 satoshi = 0.00000001 BTC
Bitcoin
How Bitcoin works, without the jargon
Every Bitcoin transaction is recorded in a public ledger, the blockchain, which thousands of independent computers keep in sync. Roughly every ten minutes, miners bundle new transactions into a block and compete to add it, spending real energy to do so. That cost is what makes rewriting the history impractical.
No one needs permission to use the network, and no one can create more bitcoin than the rules allow. Those two properties, open access and fixed supply, are what make Bitcoin different from any money that came before it.
Why Bitcoin had to exist
Bitcoin appeared in the middle of the 2008 financial crisis. The first block ever mined carries a headline from The Times of 3 January 2009: “Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.” The message was clear: here is money that no one can bail out or print.
Since the US dollar’s link to gold ended in 1971, every major currency has been backed only by trust in central banks, and every one of them has lost purchasing power. Bitcoin was designed as the opposite: money whose rules are fixed in advance and enforced by software, not by a committee.
What Bitcoin is not
It is not anonymous: every transaction is public, even if names are not. It is not a company or a share. And its price is volatile, sometimes extremely so, which is why people who hold it tend to think in years rather than weeks. Nothing on this page is investment advice.
Borja’s view
In Why Bitcoin Had to Exist, Borja argues that Bitcoin cannot be understood without first understanding why ordinary money keeps losing value. The book tells that story first, in plain English, and only then explains why a decentralised money with a fixed supply had to be invented.
Questions
Who created Bitcoin?
A person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, who published the Bitcoin white paper in October 2008 and stopped communicating publicly in 2011. Their identity is still unknown.
Why is Bitcoin limited to 21 million?
Because its rules say so. New bitcoin is paid to miners on a schedule that halves about every four years, so total supply approaches 21 million and stops growing around the year 2140.
What is the difference between Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies?
Bitcoin has no company or foundation in charge, a supply fixed from day one and the longest record of any blockchain. Most other cryptocurrencies have a team that can change the rules.
Can I understand Bitcoin without a technical background?
Yes. Why Bitcoin Had to Exist was written for exactly that reader: it explains money first and Bitcoin second, with no code.
