Whois & Analysis for bitcoin.org

Bitcoin is both a cryptocurrency and an electronic payment system invented by an unidentified programmer, or group of programmers, under the name of Satoshi Nakamoto.

Bitcoin was introduced on 31 October 2008 to a cryptography mailing list, and released as open-source software in 2009.

The identity of Nakamoto remains unknown, though many have claimed to know it.

The open-source model is a decentralized development model that encourages open collaboration.

A main principle of open-source software development is peer production, with products such as source code, blueprints, and documentation freely available to the public.

The open-source movement in software began as a response to the limitations of proprietary code.

The model is used for projects such as in open-source appropriate technologies, and open-source drug discovery.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers.

Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application.

They are said to form a peer-to-peer network of nodes.

A payment system is any system used to settle financial transactions through the transfer of monetary value, and includes the institutions, instruments, people, rules, procedures, standards, and technologies that make such an exchange possible.

A common type of payment system is the operational network that links bank accounts and provides for monetary exchange using bank deposits.

Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a particular country or socio-economic context, or is easily converted to such a form.

The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, sometimes, a standard of deferred payment.

Any item or verifiable record that fulfills these functions can be considered as money.