Bitcoin

noun

Bit·​coin ˈbit-ˌkȯin 

variants or less commonly bitcoin

: a digital currency created for use in peer-to-peer online transactions

Introduced in 2008 by a person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin is the most prominent of a group of virtual currencies—money that exists mainly as computer code—that have no central issuing authority.

—Carter Dougherty

… Bitcoin … is backed by no government and has a fluctuating value linked in part to a scarcity that is mathematically predetermined.

—Glenn Zorpette

The venture capital industry is beginning to take a good, hard look at a new financial instrument coming out of the bitcoin community—Initial Coin Offerings, or ICOs.

—Richard Kastelein

also, usually bitcoin : a unit of this currency

Commercial space venture Virgin Galactic—which announced on Nov. 22 that it would start accepting bitcoins to reserve a refundable $250,000 seat on a future trip—is just the latest of many businesses that have recently embraced the decentralized virtual payment system. (At press time, 1 bitcoin was worth roughly $879.)

—Time

Examples of Bitcoin in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Hoback followed Back to a Bitcoin conference in Riga, Latvia, where Back introduced him to one of his younger protégés, a prominent if disputatious Bitcoin developer named Peter Todd. —Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker, 9 Oct. 2024

Read More: Inside the Health Crisis of a Texas Bitcoin Town. —Andrew R. Chow, TIME, 9 Oct. 2024

Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery is now streaming on Max. —Jeremy Helligar, People.com, 9 Oct. 2024

Filmmaker Cullen Hoback embarked on a journey to discover who created Bitcoin, the first and most valuable cryptocurrency. —Alexandra Banner, CNN, 8 Oct. 2024

Word History

Etymology

bit entry 4 + coin entry 1

First Known Use

2008, in the meaning defined above