The first working crypto currency, the oldest one, the largest by now by capitalization. Basic technical details are described in its 2009 whitepaper (Nakamoto, n.d.), but a lot was added since.
The current state:
- capitalization etc can be found on the stats wiki page, also see dashboards on Dune;
- transaction cost is ?? 1 sat/transaction ?? — see a realtime Clark Moody dashboard
Where to learn about it:
Glossary
- ASIC: Application-specific integrated circuit — a specialized hardware for calculating hashes for a blockchain. Usually it can efficiently compute only specific hashes of a certain blockchain, rendering them unusable for any other purposes.
Governance
Governance is done via BIPs (Bitcoin Improvement Proposals). The list of BIPs is on Bitcoin Github repo (at 2025-01 the max number is somewhat 450 but there are gaps, so maybe 200 total of BIPs really exist).
The BIP process seems to be more or less standard for open-source projects management, e.g. PEPs in Python. The first three BIPs describe it, plus there are several more BIP-related BIPS. In few strokes, BIPs go through this pipe:
- a BIP draft is sent to the Bitcoin mailing list;
- the discussion happens;
- the draft is either accepted (and at some point implemented) or rejected;
- if a change is implemented, it must be accepted and adopted by the majority of users (network nodes aka miners), if they don't upgrade their software, the change will not be deployed (don't have info of cases when something was rejected this way).
BIPs are labeled with their scope (consensus, api, applications etc).
Development
The development occurs in a repo on Github. The main language is C++, the license is MIT.
- There is a client software called Bitcoin Core. "Client software" here means the software needed to validate the transactions, i.e. to participate in the network as a node.
- The development is done on Github via PRs, the PRs are discussed also on Github.
Some BIPs contain links to PRs in the Bitcoin Core repo.
Discussions are also held on IRC (//irc.libera.chat/bitcoin), on the forum and on Reddit (the last one is mostly for memes though).
Conclusions
What is the goal of this organization? What objectives do people participating in Bitcoin ecosystem have?
- The users (senders and recievers) of Bitcoin are essentially free riders (see Mancur Olson): they pay fees but fees are a minor source of miners income (see TimechainStats dashboard), and they're not directly included in Bitcoin governance.
- There's a lot of money produced in this DAO, so miners (and all others down the supply chain, including hardware manufacturers) supposedly want these money to flow in, otherwise their investments devaluate. But miners also are not directly included in the governance, although they may participate in the development and discussions around it.
- The ones who are directly participating in governance are the Bitcoin developers. Their incentives may vary. It's interesting what's the structure of efforts, how much effort comes from corporate bodies with monetary interests, and how much comes from independent persons.