TL;DR 👀
A super brief summary of the chapter
What is Bitcoin
Bitcoin is the first-ever virtual currency designed to act as money and a form of payment outside the control of any one entity
Bitcoin's Blockchain Technology
A blockchain is a distributed ledger, a shared database that stores data. Data within the blockchain are secured by encryption methods
UTXO Model and Transaction Fees
An unspent transaction output (UTXO) is the technical term for the amount of digital currency that remains after a cryptocurrency transaction
The UTXO model is used in many cryptocurrencies because it allows users to track ownership of all portions of that cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin uses UTXOs whereas Ethereum does not
Bitcoin Mining and Mempool
Bitcoin is a proof-of-work blockchain, and block validation takes an average of 10 minutes for the mining network to validate a block and create the reward
The bitcoin reward is 6.25 BTC per block
What are Hard Forks and Soft Forks
A hard fork is a radical change to a network's protocol that makes previously invalid blocks and transactions valid, or vice-versa
A soft fork is a change to the software protocol where only previously valid transaction blocks are made invalid
Soft forks are backwards-compatible whereas hard forks are not
What is SegWit and the Lightning Network
Segregated witness (SegWit) is a protocol upgrade that protects against transaction malleability and decreases transaction times by increasing block capacity
SegWit was a significant soft fork of the Bitcoin blockchain
Bitcoin Ecosystem
Bitcoin is used as a form of payment and as an investment vehicle around the world
The Bitcoin network of miners make money from Bitcoin by successfully validating blocks and being rewarded
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