Bitcoin

Revision as of 02:14, 20 December 2012

Bitcoin is an "alternative currency" that is generated electronically with no central authority, with a loosely-connected set of network nodes engaged in "minting" coins by solving difficult mathematical computations, validating such newly-created "coins", and storing transactions involving them. This is all accomplished algorithmically.

A bitcoin, and its associated transactions, can be represented in various ways, even including actual physical metal coins if you can believe the picture in the Wikipedia article. A binary format is defined in the Bitcoin technical specs, but archived Bitcoin blocks in the "Block Explorer" site appear to be displayed in a JSON-based format.

Data format info

• Protocol specification

Other specs and definitions

• Blocks
• Address
• Transactions

Software

• Bitcoin software on Sourceforge
• Bitcoin-Qt client

Sample files

• Block Explorer: a Bitcoin archive
• The "Genesis Block"; first Bitcoin block ever generated

Other links and references

• [[Wikipedia:Bitcoin Wikipedia article]
• My adventure in donating bitcoins to the Internet Archive