Overview
First and largest cryptocurrency by market cap. Subject of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, El Salvador’s legal-tender experiment, and the maximalist alternative-money thesis.
Key Facts
- Fixed supply cap: 21 million BTC, hardcoded in the protocol. Fourth halving occurred 2024. Satoshi Nakamoto Bitcoin Whitepaper 2008
- Created by Satoshi Nakamoto, pseudonymous identity unknown since 2011. Satoshi holds an estimated 1.1M BTC (~$118B at April 2026 prices) that has never moved. NYT Names Adam Back as Satoshi Nakamoto — Bitcoin.com Coverage
- Crossed $120,000 during U.S. Crypto Week (July 2025). Strategic Bitcoin Reserve
- Primary investment thesis: Bitcoin as Digital Gold — a store of value rather than a payment medium.
Connections
- Satoshi Nakamoto — pseudonymous creator
- Adam Back — Hashcash inventor cited in whitepaper; NYT’s Satoshi candidate
- Strategic Bitcoin Reserve — U.S. sovereign accumulation
- El Salvador Bitcoin Experiment — only national currency test
- Cypherpunk Movement — intellectual origin
Source Appearances
- Satoshi Nakamoto Bitcoin Whitepaper 2008
- NYT Names Adam Back as Satoshi Nakamoto — Bitcoin.com Coverage
- Satoshi Nakamoto Bitcoin Wallet That Never Moved — Nexo — 1.1M BTC cluster; Patoshi Pattern; genesis address; never-moved coins; market-risk framing
- Northcrypto — Monetary Policy and Bitcoin — Bitcoin-maximalist framing of Bitcoin’s fixed monetary policy vs. discretionary central banking