Bitcoin’s basic features

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Decentralized: Nobody controls or owns the Bitcoin network, and there is no CEO. Instead, the network consists of willing participants who agree to the rules of a protocol (which takes the form of an open-source software client). Changes to the protocol must be made by the consensus of its users and there is a wide array of contributing voices including ‘nodes,’ end users, developers, ‘miners,’ and adjacent industry participants like exchanges, wallet providers, and custodians. This makes Bitcoin a quasi-political system. Of the thousands of cryptocurrencies in existence, Bitcoin is arguably the most decentralized, an attribute that is considered to strengthen its position as pristine collateral for the global economy.

Distributed: All Bitcoin transactions are recorded on a public ledger that has come to be known as the ‘blockchain.’ The network relies on people voluntarily storing copies of the ledger and running the Bitcoin protocol software. These ‘nodes’ contribute to the correct propagation of transactions across the network by following the rules of the protocol as defined by the software client. There are currently more than 80,000 nodes distributed globally, making it next to impossible for the network to suffer downtime or lost information.
Transparent: The addition of new transactions to the blockchain ledger and the state of the Bitcoin network at any given time (in other words, the ‘truth’ of who owns how much bitcoin) is arrived upon by consensus and in a transparent manner according to the rules of the protocol.
Peer-to-peer: Although nodes store and propagate the state of the network (the ‘truth’), payments effectively go directly from one person or business to another. This means there’s no need for any ‘trusted third party’ to act as an intermediary.
Permissionless: Anyone can use Bitcoin, there are no gatekeepers, and there is no need to create a ‘Bitcoin account.’ Any and all transactions that follow the rules of the protocol will be confirmed by the network along the defined consensus mechanisms.
Pseudo-anonymous. Identity information isn’t inherently tied to Bitcoin transactions. Instead, transactions are tied to addresses that take the form of randomly generated alphanumeric strings.
Censorship resistant: Since all Bitcoin transactions that follow the rules of the protocol are valid, since transactions are pseudo-anonymous, and since users themselves possess the ‘key’ to their bitcoin holdings, it is difficult for authorities to ban individuals from using it or to seize their assets. This carries important implications for economic freedom, and may even act as a counteracting force to authoritarianism globally.
Public: All Bitcoin transactions are recorded and publicly available for anyone to see. While this virtually eliminates the possibility of fraudulent transactions, it also makes it possible to, in some cases, tie by deduction individual identities to specific Bitcoin addresses. A number of efforts to enhance Bitcoin’s privacy are underway, but their integration into the protocol is ultimately subject to Bitcoin’s quasi-political governance process.

Bitcoin’s basic features

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