Blockchain

Blockchain

ntegral to Bitcoin is a public transaction log, the blockchain, that records bitcoin ownership currently as well as in the past. By keeping a record of all transactions, the blockchain prevents double-spending. Cryptography is used to protect the integrity of the blockchain.

This master list of all transactions is maintained by a distributed network of computers that does the payment processing work of Bitcoin.] Users who devote computing power to maintaining the blockchain in this way are called "miners" and are rewarded with newly created bitcoins as well as fees. Payment processing work done by miners verifies each transaction as valid and adds it to the blockchain. As more bitcoins come into circulation the reward for doing payment processing decreases and will stop altogether when the Bitcoin upper limit of 21 million bitcoins has been reached. As Bitcoin achieves wider recognition and more people compete to mine the coins, competition for the limited number of bitcoins awarded for payment processing work becomes steeper and more powerful computers are needed in order to compete—a fact which has spawned a technology boom in sales of Bitcoin mining technology. In addition, Bitcoin is designed to increase the difficulty of payment processing as more miners connect to the network.