Learn how bitcoin works in about five minutes. Four short rides, one idea each. No wallet, no coin, no jargon.
Bitcoin is digital money that no government or bank prints. It runs on a public record book, a blockchain, that thousands of computers keep copies of. Only 21 million bitcoin will ever exist, and new coins come out slower and slower over time. You hold bitcoin with a secret key. Whoever has the key controls the coins, so the key is the thing to protect.
Bitcoin is digital money that no government or bank issues. It runs on a public record book, called a blockchain, that thousands of computers keep copies of and check by the same rules. You hold bitcoin with a secret key, and whoever controls the key controls the coins.
The limit is written into bitcoin's code. New coins are only created as rewards for miners, and that reward is cut in half on a fixed schedule, so the total adds up to just under 21 million and then stops. Changing the cap would require nearly everyone running the network to agree to new rules.
Halving is the scheduled cut in the reward miners earn for each new block. It happens every 210,000 blocks, roughly every four years. The reward started at 50 bitcoin in 2009, and the April 2024 halving cut it to 3.125 bitcoin. The last new bitcoin is expected to be mined around the year 2140.
A bitcoin wallet is software or a device that holds your private keys, which are the secrets that let you spend your coins. A seed phrase is a list of 12 or 24 ordinary words that can rebuild those keys if you lose the wallet. Anyone who sees your seed phrase can take your bitcoin, so never share it or type it into a website.
A satoshi is the smallest unit of bitcoin, equal to 0.00000001 bitcoin. It takes 100 million satoshis to make one bitcoin. The unit is named after Satoshi Nakamoto, the unknown creator of bitcoin, and it lets people send very small amounts.
Mining is how new blocks of transactions get added to bitcoin's blockchain. Miners run computers that make huge numbers of guesses to find a block hash that meets a difficulty target, a system called proof-of-work. The winner adds the block and earns the block reward plus fees. That work costs real electricity and hardware, which is what makes rewriting bitcoin's history so expensive.
No. A blockchain is a way of keeping a shared record that is very hard to change. Bitcoin is the first and best known use of a blockchain, built to move digital money. Many other projects use blockchains for other things, such as stablecoins or tracking records.
Yes, it is free, and no, you do not need a wallet, an account or any bitcoin. It runs in your web browser on a phone or computer and takes about five minutes. It is for education only and does not recommend buying anything.