bitcoin

From bit (“binary digit”) +‎ coin,^[1] coined by Satoshi Nakamoto, believed to be a pseudonym for one or more people, in the domain name bitcoin.org registered on 18 August 2008; and in the title of the white paper “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”, a link to which was posted on the cryptography mailing list metzdowd.com on 31 October 2008:^[2] see the quotation.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈbɪtkɔɪn/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈbɪtˌkɔɪn/, [ˈb̥ɪt̚ˌkɔɪ̯n], [ˈb̥ɪʔˌkɔɪ̯n]
• Hyphenation: bit‧coin

bitcoin

2. (uncountable, computing, finance) A decentralized cryptocurrency using blockchain technology. [from 2008]

   Hypernym: cryptocurrency

   We do not accept bitcoin at this store.

   • 2008 October 31, Satoshi Nakamoto [pseudonym], “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”, in Bitcoin.org‎^[2], archived from the original on 4 January 2025:

     Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System [title] […] What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party. […] In this paper, we propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer distributed timestamp server to generate computational proof of the chronological order of transactions.

   • 2011 November 23, Benjamin Wallace, “The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin”, in Wired‎^[3], San Francisco, Calif.: Condé Nast Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2 January 2025:

     [A] man named Satoshi Nakamoto posted a research paper to an obscure cryptography listserv describing his design for a new digital currency that he called bitcoin.

   • 2014, Dale Blake, “Getting and Selling Bitcoins”, in Bitcoin Guide for Beginners: Bitcoin Trading and Mining Made Easy, La Vergne, Tenn.: Mihails Konoplovs, →ISBN:

     [Bitcoins] do not depend on the state banks, but are created through mining. Mining is also called as hashing. It is a process of solving complex math problems using those computers which run bitcoin software.

   • 2015, Scott Green, “Bitcoin Growth and Trends”, in Bitcoin: The Ultimate A–Z of Profitable Bitcoin Trading & Mining Guide Exposed! (The Blokehead Series), Milan: Scott Green, →ISBN:

     Other e-commerce sites that accept bitcoin are: Bitcoinshop.us which offers products like watches and air conditioners and ships to people within the United States; […] Travel booking websites also start to accept bitcoin sales on flights, hotel bookings to at least 200,000 hotels and railway Amtrak through their platforms.

   • 2016, Prypto [pseudonym], “Bitcoin Security”, in Bitcoin for Dummies (For Dummies), Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, part III (Using Bitcoin in Business), page 137:

     Individual bitcoin users are not the only driving force in terms of securing the bitcoin network. Over the past few years, dedicated bitcoin nodes have been added to the network with the sole purpose of receiving and broadcasting new bitcoin transactions to other users and nodes on the network.

   • 2017 June, Andreas M[arkos] Antonopoulos, “Introduction”, in Tim McGovern, editor, Mastering Bitcoin: Programming the Open Blockchain, 2nd edition, Sebastopol, Calif.: O’Reilly Media, →ISBN, page 11:

     Find a friend who has bitcoin and buy some from him or her directly. Many bitcoin users start this way. This method is the least complicated. One way to meet people with bitcoin is to attend a local bitcoin meetup listed at Meetup.com (https://meetup.com).

• Bitcoin, BitCoin

bitcoin (plural bitcoins or bitcoin)

1. (countable, computing, finance) A unit of the bitcoin (proper noun sense 1) cryptocurrency.

   Synonyms: ₿, BTC, XBT (all symbols)

   This item costs one bitcoin.

   • 2008 November, Alex Marchand, “What is Money?”, in Dissolving Dollars: Exposing the Debt-based Insanity behind Modern Money, [S.l.]: 451° Publishing, published April 2015, →ISBN, page 12:

     The value of fiat money is determined by legal means (legal tender laws). In other words, fiat money is anything the government says in money. For instance, if the government says an IOU or a bitcoin is money, then it is money. The major currencies of the contemporary world are fiat money.

   • 2011 November 23, Benjamin Wallace, “The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin”, in Wired‎^[4], San Francisco, Calif.: Condé Nast Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2 January 2025:

     Users willing to devote CPU power to running a special piece of software would be called miners and would form a network to maintain the block chain collectively. […] The first miner to solve each puzzle would be awarded 50 new bitcoins, and the associated block of transactions would be added to the chain. […] [Satoshi] Nakamoto himself mined the first 50 bitcoins—which came to be called the genesis block—on January 3, 2009.

   • 2013, Elda Watulo, John Davidson, “Making a Hash of It”, in How to Make Money Online With Digital Currency Bitcoins (Entrepreneur Book Series; 8), [S.l.]: JD-Biz Publishing, →ISBN:

     Each time you succeed in creating a hash, you are rewarded with 25 bitcoins, the block chain is updated and all the users on the network are notified. This serves as an incentive to keep mining the bitcoins and keep the bitcoin transactions working.

   • 2014, Kinsley Wallace, “How to Invest and Trade Bitcoins”, in Bitcoins: How to Invest, Buy and Sell: A Guide to Using the Bitcoin, [United States]: Speedy Publishing, →ISBN:

     They buy bitcoins at a lower price then sell them at a higher value.

   • 2017, Chris Burniske, Jack Tatar, Cryptoassets: The Innovative Investor’s Guide to Bitcoin and beyond, New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill Education, →ISBN, page 177:

     But consider that a significant amount of bitcoin is also being held by investors. Those investors do not plan to sell their bitcoin for some time because they are speculating that due to its utility as MoIP, demand will continue to rise and so too will its value. Currently, roughly 5.5 million bitcoin, or US$5.5 billion worth at the price of US$1,000 per coin, is held by the top 1,000 addresses recorded in Bitcoin's blockchain.

   • 2024 November 19, Jeanne Sahadi, “Bitcoin has smashed records. Should you invest?”, in CNN Business‎^[5]:

     Bitcoin is the oldest and best known of all crypto coins. Its creator — the ever-anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto — set things up so that there can never be more than 21 million bitcoins in existence.
     Unlike other assets that are valued based on tangible components — for example, a company’s goods and services or a natural resource — bitcoin is considered a store of value, the price of which depends strictly on what others are willing to pay for it.

• bitcoiner
• microbitcoin
• millibitcoin
• shitcoin

Subdivisions of bitcoin

• decicoin: 0.1 BTC
• centicoin (also bitcent): 0.01 BTC
• millibitcoin (mBTC) (also millicoin, millibit): 0.001 BTC
• microbitcoin (μBTC) (also bit): 0.000001 BTC
• satoshi: 0.00000001 BTC

Other terms

• altcoin
• coiner
• dogecoin
• memecoin

• bitcoin on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• binotic, biontic, bitonic

From English bitcoin.

• Audio:

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bitcoin m (plural bitcoins, diminutive bitcointje n)

1. bitcoin

English bitcoin

• IPA^(key): /ˈbitkoi̯n/, [ˈbit̪ko̞i̯n]
• Rhymes: -itkoin

bitcoin

1. bitcoin

• “bitcoin”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎^[6] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2 July 2023

Borrowed from English bitcoin.

• IPA^(key): /bit.kɔjn/

• Audio:

  (file)

bitcoin m (plural bitcoins)

1. bitcoin

Borrowed from English bitcoin.

• IPA^(key): [ˈbitkojn]
• Hyphenation: bit‧coin
• Rhymes: -ojn

bitcoin (plural bitcoinok)

1. bitcoin

   Hypernyms: kriptovaluta, kriptopénz

Unadapted borrowing from English bitcoin.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbit.kɔjn/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -itkɔjn
• Syllabification: bit‧coin

bitcoin m animal

1. bitcoin (decentralized cryptocurrency)

• bitcoin in Polish dictionaries at PWN

• Bitcoin

Unadapted borrowing from English bitcoin.

bitcoin m or f (countable and uncountable, plural bitcoins)

1. (uncountable) bitcoin (a cryptocurrency)

   Hypernym: criptomoeda

2. (countable) bitcoin (a unit of the bitcoin)

• “bitcoin”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2025
• “bitcoin”, in Dicionário infopédia da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Porto: Porto Editora, 2003–2025
• “bitcoin”, in Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), São Paulo: Editora Melhoramentos, 2015–2025

Unadapted borrowing from English bitcoin.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbit.kojn/

bitcoin m (plural bitcoini)

1. bitcoin

Borrowed from English bitcoin.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbidkoin/ [ˈbið̞.kõĩn]
• Rhymes: -idkoin
• Syllabification: bit‧coin

bitcoin m (plural bitcoins or bitcoines)

1. bitcoin (a cryptocurrency)

• bitcóin

• “bitcoin”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024

bitcoin c

1. bitcoin (a digital currency used for payments over the internet)

• bitcoin in Svensk ordbok.
• bitcoin on the Swedish Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^sv