What Bitcoin Is
Bitcoin is digital money that moves directly between people over the internet. There are no physical coins, no central bank, and no company controlling who may use it. A global network of computers keeps a shared record of payments and checks that the rules are followed.
Ownership depends on cryptographic keys. A wallet stores the private keys that let someone spend funds, while bitcoin is received at public addresses that can be shared freely. When a payment is made, the wallet uses a private key to prove permission to spend without revealing the key itself.
Transactions are grouped into blocks, and each block is linked to the one before it. This creates the blockchain, a public history of payments that is extremely hard to change once enough blocks have been added. As new blocks appear, older transactions gain confirmations and become more secure.
The system also has a fixed money supply. New bitcoin is released on a predictable schedule, and the total supply is capped at 21 million coins. This replaces the discretion of a central bank with transparent monetary rules that anyone can inspect.
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