bitcoin

Pluralbitcoins, bitcoin

1. 1
   proper noununcountable

   A decentralized digital currency that records transactions on a shared public ledger called a blockchain.

   Like a public ledger that thousands of computers keep identical copies of, so no single person can secretly change it.

   Investors watched bitcoin climb to record highs during the rally.

   The merchant began accepting bitcoin alongside traditional payment cards.

   Note

   The name joins bit, the binary digit, to coin. Satoshi Nakamoto, a pseudonym possibly shared by more than one person, registered the domain bitcoin.org on 18 August 2008. Nakamoto's paper of 31 October 2008 called for "an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust." As the name of the system it is uncountable and takes no article: a shop accepts bitcoin the way it accepts cash.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A single unit of the bitcoin cryptocurrency, used to measure amounts that people hold, trade, or transfer.

   Like a single share of stock, except the asset is digital money rather than a company.

   The early investor held several bitcoins before the price soared.

   A single bitcoin was worth only a few cents in the early days.

   SimilarBTC, XBT

   Note

   Here the word counts coins rather than naming the system itself, and it has two plurals: two bitcoins or two bitcoin. In prices and balances, the codes BTC and XBT and the symbol ₿ stand in for it. New units are created by mining. Benjamin Wallace in Wired (2011) describes 50 new bitcoins for each solved puzzle. Elda Watulo and John Davidson (2013) give the reward as 25.

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