What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a form of digital currency that eliminates the need for central authorities such as banks or governments. Bitcoin is a peer to peer network that uses blockchain technology to support transactions between users. It enables you to securely store value over time and to transfer that value to anyone else at any time without the need for a trusted third party. It has a fixed maximum supply of 21 million Bitcoins and is on a transparent inflation schedule that cannot be changed like our current U.S.Dollar.
Bitcoin enables cryptographically secure, censorship resistant payments across borders. It is the first and only form of absolute digital scarcity and is not controlled by any one person or group.
Who created Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is the first implementation of a concept called "cryptocurrency", which was first described in 1998 by Wei Dai on the cypherpunks mailing list, suggesting the idea of a new form of money that uses cryptography to control its creation and transactions, rather than a central authority.
The first Bitcoin specification and proof of concept was published in 2009 in a cryptography mailing list by Satoshi Nakamoto. Satoshi left the project in late 2010 without revealing much about himself. The community has since grown exponentially with many developers working on Bitcoin.
Satoshi's anonymity often raised unjustified concerns, many of which are linked to misunderstanding of the open-source nature of Bitcoin. The Bitcoin protocol and software are published openly and any developer around the world can review the code. Just like current developers, Satoshi's influence was limited to the changes he made being adopted by others and therefore he did not control Bitcoin. As such, the identity of Bitcoin's inventor is probably as relevant today as the identity of the person who invented paper.