Bitcoin cripto currency is the easiest way to transact at a very low cost.
Mobile payments made easy
Contents
- 0.1 Mobile payments made easy
- 0.2 Security and control over your money
- 0.3 Works everywhere, anytime
- 0.4 Fast international payments
- 0.5 Choose your own fees
- 0.6 Protect your identity
- 0.7 Choose your own fees
- 0.8 Protection against fraud
- 0.9 Fast international payments
- 0.10 No PCI compliance required
- 0.11 Get some free visibility
- 0.12 Multi-signature
- 0.13 Accounting transparency
- 1 Learn Bitcoin and start building Bitcoins-based applications.
- 2 Getting Started
- 3 Some things you need to know
- 4 Innovation in Payment Systems
- 5 Support Bitcoin
Bitcoin when used on a mobile device allows you to pay with a simple two-step scan-and-pay. There’s no need to sign up, swipe your card, type a PIN, or sign anything. All you need to receive Bitcoin payments is to display the QR code in your Bitcoin wallet app and let the other party scan your mobile, or touch the two phones together (using NFC radio technology).
Security and control over your money
Bitcoin transactions are secured by mathematics and energy. Cryptographic signatures prevent other people from spending your money. Energy spent by proof of work (PoW) prevents other people from undoing, rearranging or losing your transactions. So long as you take the required steps to protect your wallet, Bitcoin can give you control over your money and a strong level of protection against many types of fraud.
Works everywhere, anytime
Similarly to email, you don’t need to ask recipients you’re sending bitcoin to, to use the same software, wallets or service providers. You just need their bitcoin address and then you can transact with them anytime. The Bitcoin network is always running and never sleeps, even on weekends and holidays.
Fast international payments
Sending bitcoins across borders is as easy as sending them across the street. There are no banks to make you wait three business days, no extra fees for making an international transfer, and no special limitations on the minimum or maximum amount you can send.
Choose your own fees
There is no fee to receive bitcoins, and many wallets let you control how large a fee to pay when spending. Most wallets have reasonable default fees, and higher fees can encourage faster confirmation of your transactions. Fees are unrelated to the amount transferred, so it’s possible to send 100,000 bitcoins for the same fee it costs to send 1 bitcoin.
Protect your identity
With Bitcoin, there’s no credit card number that malicious actors can collect in order to steal from you. In fact, it’s even possible in some cases to send a payment without revealing your identity, almost like with physical money. You should, however, take note that some effort can be required to protect your privacy.
Choose your own fees
There is no fee to receive bitcoins, and many wallets let you control how large a fee to pay when spending. Most wallets have reasonable default fees, and higher fees can encourage faster confirmation of your transactions. Fees are unrelated to the amount transferred, so it’s possible to send 100,000 bitcoins for the same fee it costs to send 1 bitcoin.
Protection against fraud
Any business that accepts credit cards or PayPal knows the problem of payments that are later reversed. Chargeback frauds result in limited market reach and increased prices, which in turn penalizes customers. Bitcoin payments are irreversible and secure, meaning that the cost of fraud is no longer pushed onto the shoulders of the merchants.
Fast international payments
Sending bitcoins across borders is as easy as sending them across the street. There are no banks to make you wait three business days, no extra fees for making an international transfer, and no special limitations on the minimum or maximum amount you can send.
No PCI compliance required
Accepting credit cards online typically requires extensive security checks in order to comply with the PCI standard. Bitcoin still requires you to secure your wallet and your payment requests, however, you do not carry the costs and responsibilities that come with processing sensitive information from your customers like with credit card numbers.
Get some free visibility
Bitcoin is an emerging market of new customers who are searching for ways to spend their bitcoins. Accepting them is a good way to get new customers and give your business some new visibility. Accepting a new payment method has often shown to be a clever practice for online businesses.
Multi-signature
Bitcoins also includes a multi-signature feature which allows bitcoins to be spent only if a subset of a group of people authorize the transaction. This can be used by a board of directors, for example, to prevent members from making expenditures without enough consent from other members, as well as to track which members permitted particular transactions.
Accounting transparency
Many organizations are required to produce accounting documents about their activity. Using Bitcoins allows you to offer the highest level of transparency since you can provide information to verify balances and transactions through the block chain. For example, non-profit organizations can allow the public to see how
Learn Bitcoin and start building Bitcoins-based applications.
Getting Started
The site aims to provide the information you need to understand Bitcoin and start building Bitcoin-based applications. To make the best use of this documentation, make sure you’re running a node.
For technical support, we recommend Bitcoin Stack Exchange. For errors or suggestions related to this documentation, please open an issue on GitHub.
Acknowledgments
This documentation would not be possible without the many contributions to the Bitcoin project over the years from core developers and other people. A very special thanks, however, goes to David Harding who in 2014 helped lead the effort to compose and bring together a significant amount of the material found here. Also, to Cornelius Schumacher for envisioning new ways to extend the developer documentation that led to this site
Some things you need to know
If you’re getting started with Bitcoin, there are a few things you should know. Bitcoin lets you exchange money and transact in a different way than you normally do. As such, you should take time to inform yourself before using Bitcoin for any serious transaction. Bitcoin should be treated with the same care as your regular wallet, or even more in some cases!
Securing your wallet
Like in real life, your wallet must be secured. Bitcoin makes it possible to transfer value anywhere in a very easy way and it allows you to be in control of your money. Such great features also come with great security concerns. At the same time, Bitcoin can provide very high levels of security if used correctly. Always remember that it is your responsibility to adopt good practices in order to protect your money. Read more about securing your wallet.
Bitcoin price is volatile
The price of a bitcoin can unpredictably increase or decrease over a short period of time due to its young economy, novel nature, and sometimes illiquid markets. Consequently, keeping your savings with Bitcoin is not recommended at this point. Bitcoin should be seen like a high risk asset, and you should never store money that you cannot afford to lose with Bitcoin. If you receive payments with Bitcoin, many service providers can convert them to your local currency.
Bitcoin payments are irreversible
A Bitcoin transaction cannot be reversed, it can only be refunded by the person receiving the funds. This means you should take care to do business with people and organizations you know and trust, or who have an established reputation. For their part, businesses need to keep track of the payment requests they are displaying to their customers. Bitcoin can detect typos and usually won’t let you send money to an invalid address by mistake, but it’s best to have controls in place for additional safety and redundancy. Additional services might exist in the future to provide more choice and protection for both businesses and consumers.
Bitcoin is not anonymous
Some effort is required to protect your privacy with Bitcoin. All Bitcoin transactions are stored publicly and permanently on the network, which means anyone can see the balance and transactions of any Bitcoin address. However, the identity of the user behind an address remains unknown until information is revealed during a purchase or in other circumstances. This is one reason why Bitcoin addresses should only be used once. Always remember that it is your responsibility to adopt good practices in order to protect your privacy. Read more about protecting your privacy.
| Confirmations | Lightweight wallets | Bitcoin Core |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Only safe if you trust the person paying you | |
| 1 | Somewhat reliable | Mostly reliable |
| 3 | Mostly reliable | Highly reliable |
| 6 | Minimum recommendation for high-value bitcoin transfers | |
| 30 | Recommendation during emergencies to allow human intervention | |
Unconfirmed transactions aren’t secure
Transactions don’t start out as irreversible. Instead, they get a confirmation score that indicates how hard it is to reverse them (see table). Each confirmation takes between a few seconds and 90 minutes, with 10 minutes being the average. If the transaction pays too low a fee or is otherwise atypical, getting the first confirmation can take much longer.
Bitcoin is still experimental
Bitcoin is an experimental new currency that is in active development. Each improvement makes Bitcoin more appealing but also reveals new challenges as Bitcoin adoption grows. During these growing pains you might encounter increased fees, slower confirmations, or even more severe issues. Be prepared for problems and consult a technical expert before making any major investments, but keep in mind that nobody can predict Bitcoin’s future.
Government taxes and regulations
Bitcoin is not an official currency. That said, most jurisdictions still require you to pay income, sales, payroll, and capital gains taxes on anything that has value, including bitcoins. It is your responsibility to ensure that you adhere to tax and other legal or regulatory mandates issued by your government and/or local municipalities.
Innovation in Payment Systems
Bitcoin isn’t just about sending money. It has many features and opens many possibilities that the community is still exploring. Here are some of the technologies currently being researched, and in some cases, being turned into real products and services. The most interesting uses of Bitcoin are probably still to be discovered.
Control against fraud
An unprecedented level of security is possible with Bitcoin. The network provides users with protection against most prevalent types of fraud like chargebacks or unwanted charges, and bitcoins are impossible to counterfeit. Users can backup or encrypt their wallets. Hardware wallets make it very difficult to steal or lose money. Bitcoin is designed to allow its users to have complete control over their money.
Global accessibility
With Bitcoin, all payments in the world can be fully interoperable. Bitcoin allows any bank, business or individual to securely send and receive payments anywhere at any time, with or without a bank account. Bitcoin is available in a large number of countries that still remain out of reach for most payment systems due to their own limitations. Bitcoin increases global access to commerce and it can help international trades to flourish.
Cost efficiency
With the use of cryptography, secure payments are possible without slow and costly middlemen. A Bitcoin transaction can be much cheaper than its alternatives and be completed in a short time. This means Bitcoin holds some potential to become a common way to transfer any currency in the future. Bitcoin could also play a role in reducing poverty in many countries by cutting high transaction fees on workers’ salary.
Tips and donations
Bitcoin has been a particularly efficient solution for tips and donations. Sending a payment only requires one click and receiving donations can be as simple as displaying a QR code. Donations can be visible for the public, giving increased transparency for non-profit organizations. In cases of emergencies such as natural disasters, Bitcoin donations could contribute to a faster international response.
Crowdfunding
Bitcoin can be used to run Kickstarter-like crowdfunding campaigns, in which individuals pledge money to a project that is taken from them only if enough pledges are received to meet the target. Such assurance contracts are processed by the Bitcoin protocol, which prevents a transaction from taking place until all conditions have been met. Learn more about the technology behind crowdfunding.
Micro payments
Imagine listening to Internet radio paid by the second, viewing web pages with a small tip for each ad not shown, or buying bandwidth from a WiFi hotspot by the kilobyte. Bitcoin is efficient enough to make all of these ideas possible. Learn more about the technology behind Bitcoin micropayments or about future upgrades currently being designed and implemented to make micropayments more accessible.
Dispute mediation
Bitcoin can be used to develop innovative dispute mediation services using multiple signatures. Such services could make it possible for a third party to approve or reject a transaction in case of disagreement between the other parties without having control of their money. Since these services would be compatible with any user and merchant using Bitcoin, this would likely lead to free competition and higher quality standards.
Multi-signature accounts
Multiple signatures allow a transaction to be accepted by the network only if a certain number of a defined group of persons agree to sign the transaction. This could be used by a board of directors to prevent any member to spend parts of their treasury without other members’ consent. This can also be used by banks to prevent theft by blocking payments above a threshold if the user does not provide additional credentials.
Trust and integrity
Bitcoin offers solutions to many of the trust problems that plague banks. With selective accounting transparency, digital contracts, and irreversible transactions, Bitcoin can be used as a ground to restore trust and agreement. Crooked banks cannot cheat the system to make a profit at the expense of other banks or the public. A future in which major banks would support Bitcoin could help to reinstate integrity and trust in financial institutions.
Resilience and decentralization
By way of decentralization, Bitcoin created a different type of payment network with an increased level of resilience and redundancy. Bitcoins can handle millions of dollars in trades without requiring military protection. With no central point of failure such as a data center, attacking the network is difficult. Bitcoin could represent an interesting step forward in securing local and global financial systems.
Flexible transparency
All Bitcoins transactions are public and transparent and the identity of the people behind transactions are private by default. This allows individuals and organizations to work with flexible transparency rules. For instance, a business can choose to reveal certain transactions and balances only to certain employees just like a non-profit organization is free to allow the public to see how much they receive in daily and monthly donations.
Automated solutions
Automated services usually have to deal with costs and limitations of cash, or credit card payments. This includes all kinds of vending machines, from train tickets to soda machines. Bitcoin is suited to be used in a new generation of automated services to cut their operating costs. Imagine self-driving taxis or a store where you can pay for your purchases without waiting in line. Many ideas are possible.
Support Bitcoin
Bitcoins was born from a small community and has grown fast. There are a lot of things you can do to support it and help others learn more.
Using Bitcoin
Using Bitcoins is the first thing you can do to support Bitcoins. There are probably many cases where it can make your life easier. You can accept payments and make purchases with Bitcoin.
Be the network
If you have a good Internet connection, you can strengthen the Bitcoins network by keeping full node software running on your computer or server with port 8333 open. Full nodes are securing and relaying all transactions.
Mining
You can start mining bitcoins to help processing transactions. In order to protect the network, you should join smaller mining pools and prefer decentralized pools like P2Pool or pools with getblocktemplate (GBT) support.
Translate
You can help spread Bitcoins awareness by translating or improving translations inside important parts of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Just pick a project you would like to help with.
Development
Bitcoin is free software. If you are a developer, you can use your superpowers to do good and improve Bitcoin. Or you can build amazing new services or software that use Bitcoin.
Donation
The easiest way to help is to donate some bitcoin to BitGive. Or you can help directly fund any project related to Bitcoin that you believe will be helpful in the future.
Organizations
Many non-profit organizations are dedicated to protecting and promoting Bitcoin. You can help these groups by joining them and taking part in their projects, discussions and events.
Spread
Speak about Bitcoin to interested people. Write about it on your blog. Tell your favorite shops you would like to pay with Bitcoin. Help to keep merchant directories up to date. Or be creative and make yourself a nice Bitcoin T-shirt.
Documentation
Bitcoin.org and the Bitcoin wiki provide useful documentation and we are constantly improving the information they contain. You can help to improve these resources and keep them up to date.
Meet the communities
You can join Bitcoin communities and talk with other Bitcoin enthusiasts. You can learn more about Bitcoin every day, give help to new users and get involved in interesting projects.