+ Bitcoin was the first decentralized digital currency based on + blockchain technology. It was created in 2008 by an anonymous + programmer known as Satoshi Nakamoto, who released the white paper in + a cryptography mailing list and later open sourced the software that + implements the protocol. +
+
+ Soft work
+ Change to the Bitcoin protocol that makes old blocks invalid which
+ were valid in the past. Bitcoin Segwit transactions feature was
+ implemented as a soft fork to the network.
+
+ Hard work
+ Change to the Bitcoin protocol that makes previously invalid blocks or
+ transactions valid. The BerkeleyDB bug activated an accidental hard
+ fork to the Bitcoin network in 2013.
+
+ Bitcoin software runs on a number of distributed devices ranging from + smartphones as mobile wallets, PCs as desktop wallets, to ASICs for + mining. Transactions are relayed between nodes in a peer-to-peer + fashion. In a few seconds a given block will be propagated to all + other nodes on the network. While insuring that all nodes reach + consensus on which are the valid blocks. The process of supplying new + bitcoin to the system is done via the process of mining. The mining + software runs on specialized hardware and it tries to compute the hash + of assembled transactions and a number called the nonce. The software + targets a difficulty index automatically adjusted by the network. The + first miner to find the correct nonce wins the mining reward and can + relay the mined block to other peers on the network. +
+
+ Store of Value
+ Bitcoin, unlike other cryptocurrencies is considered as a store of
+ value and could arguably become the next global reserve currency.
+
+ Gateway to the Digital Currency World
+ Bitcoin is considered as the gateway to the cryptocurrency world,
+ based on its status as the first successful digital currency
+ experiment.
+
+ Bitcoin Script Language
+ An assembly like language used to build complex types of transactions
+ and advanced contracts to an extent. Complex transactions like
+ Multi-Sig are possible because of advanced Bitcoin scripting.
+