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How does Bitcoin work?

The basics for a new user

As a replacement user, you'll start with Bitcoin without understanding the technical details. Once you've installed a Bitcoin wallet on your computer or mobile , it'll generate your first Bitcoin address and you'll create more whenever you would like one. You can disclose your addresses to your friends in order that they will pay you or the other way around . In fact, this is often pretty almost like how email works, except that Bitcoin addresses should be used just one occasion .


Balances - block chain

The block chain may be a shared public ledger on which the whole Bitcoin network relies. All confirmed transactions are included within the block chain. Bitcoin wallet is allowed to calculate its payable balance as new transactions are often verified thereby ensuring they're actually owned by the spender. The integrity and therefore the chronological order of the block chain are enforced with cryptography.

Transactions - private keys

A transaction may be a transfer useful between Bitcoin wallets that gets included within the block chain. Bitcoin wallets keep a secret piece of knowledge called a personal key or seed, which is employed to sign transactions, providing a proof that they need come from the owner of the wallet.The signature also prevents a transaction from being altered by anyone once it is issued.All transactions are broadcast to the network and typically begin to be confirmed within 10-20 minutes, through a process called mining.


Processing - mining

Mining may be a distributed consensus system that's wont to confirm pending transactions by including them within the block chain. It requires a chronological arrangement within the blockchain, and protects neutrality of the network, and allows different computers to agree on the state of the system. To be confirmed, transactions must be packed during a block that matches very strict cryptographic rules which will be verified by the network. These rules prevent previous blocks from being modified because doing so would invalidate all the next blocks. Mining also creates the equivalent of a competitive lottery that forestalls a person from easily adding new blocks consecutively to the block chain. In this way, no group or individuals can control what's included within the block chain or replace parts of the block chain to roll back their own spends.

Going down the rabbit hole

This is just a short summary of Bitcoin. If you would like to find out more of the small print , you'll read the first paper that describes its design, the developer documentation, or explore the Bitcoin wiki.

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