Chapter 4. Bitcoin

Bitcoin is the first application of the blockchain technology. In this chapter, readers will be introduced to bitcoin technology in detail.

Bitcoin has started a revolution with the introduction of the very first fully decentralized digital currency, and one that has proven to be extremely secure and stable. This has also sparked a great interest in academic and industrial research and introduced many new research areas. Since its introduction in 2008, bitcoin has gained much popularity and is currently the most successful digital currency in the world with billions of dollars invested in it. It is built on decades of research in the field of cryptography, digital cash, and distributed computing. In the following section, a brief history is presented in order to provide the background required to understand the foundations behind the invention of bitcoin.

Digital currencies have always been an active area of research for many decades. Early proposals to create...