Bitcoin

Bitcoin is the first, most popular, and most widespread cryptocurrency on the market. Bitcoin is used to make anonymous payments and is an open-source and free software. Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer network, meaning that it does not have one central authority that controls it, rather a collaborative group of computers run around the world known as nodes. Bitcoin has a mysterious and elusive founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, who disappeared entirely 2 years after Bitcoin's founding. Bitcoin has many alternatives known as "altcoins" and these altcoins include Ripple, Ethereum, Litecoin, and other currencies. The exchange rate of Bitcoin is around 11,000 dollars (as of March 1, 2017, this may have changed) and is forecasted to increase.