Bitcoin Network: the decentralized foundation of the first cryptocurrency 🌐

Bitcoin network. Global, decentralized. Emerged in 2009 from the idea of the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto. It seems no one expected such success. A revolutionary thing 🚀, mixing cryptography, distributed systems, and economics. Works on its own. Without a center.

Network Architecture

Thousands of nodes are scattered all over the world. Each has a complete copy of the blockchain. A public ledger, an open book. Blocks are linked together cryptographically. Sending bitcoins? Information spreads across the network. Nodes verify. Nodes confirm. Everything is transparent.

Mining and Proof-of-Work 🔨

Mining is the heart of the system. A rather strange process, if you think about it. Computers solve meaningless tasks. They consume electricity. Why? For security. By September 2025, the block reward will drop to 3.125 BTC. Plus fees. A new block approximately every 10 minutes. Not fast. But reliable.

Mainnet 🌎

What network does Bitcoin use? Its own. Mainnet. Here everything is real. Real money, real transactions. There are also test networks. But there the coins are not real. Toy coins.

Wallets and Addresses 💼

You need a wallet to work. Trust Wallet is suitable. The wallet stores the keys. Without the key, there is no access to the coins. Addresses start with "1", "3", or "bc1". The last ones are newer and better. Fees are lower.

Mining Difficulty 📈

The system adjusts itself. Every two weeks. The difficulty increases or decreases. By the fall of 2025, it will reach some insane 113.7575 trillion. That's incredibly high. It gets harder to mine every year. And more expensive.

Hashrate and Security 🔒

Hashrate. A strange word. The power of the network. By September 2025 - about 789.68 exahashes per second. An incomprehensible figure. Giant security. However, it consumes a lot of energy. Many do not like this.

Transactions and Fees 💸

Inputs, outputs. Sent coins, change. Miners are not altruists. They take transactions with higher fees first. The average fee by autumn 2025 is about 15 dollars. Quite a lot. But it can be worse or better.

Network Load 🔥

Sometimes the network is overloaded. The mempool is full. Transactions are waiting. Fees are skyrocketing. Especially after the halving or during sharp price spikes. Bitcoin is not very fast. Definitely not for micropayments.

Lightning Network ⚡

Solution? Lightning Network. Fast payments. Cents instead of dollars in fees. Second layer over the main network. Not everyone uses it. But the technology is evolving.

The Bitcoin network is growing. It survives against all odds 🌕. There is something about it, as millions of people around the world continue to participate in it. Not perfect. But it works. For 16 years now.