Bitcoin is an experimental, decentralized digital currency that enables instant payments to anyone, anywhere in the world.
Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer networking technology to operate with no central authority: managing transactions and issuing money are carried out collectively by the network. It is one of the first implementations of a concept called
crypto-currency which was first described in 1998 by Wei Dai on the cypherpunks mailing list. Building upon the notion that money is any object, or any sort of record, accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context, Bitcoin is designed around the idea of using cryptography to control the creation and transfer of money, rather than relying on central authorities.
Bitcoin uses public-key cryptography and proof-of-work to process and verify payments. Bitcoins are sent (or signed over) from one address to another with each user potentially having many, many addresses. Each payment transaction is broadcast to the network and included in the blockchain so that the included bitcoins cannot be spent twice. After an hour or two, each transaction is locked in time by the massive amount of processing power that continues to extend the block chain. Using these techniques, Bitcoin provides a fast and extremely reliable payment network that anyone can use.
The original Bitcoin software by Satoshi Nakamoto was released under the MIT license.
Anybody else excited about this?
