Bitcoin (BTC)

Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency and still the largest. It launched in 2009, created by an unknown person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto. The goal was money that two people could send each other directly, with no bank approving the transfer.

It runs on its own blockchain, a public ledger copied across thousands of computers worldwide. Every Bitcoin transaction ever made sits on that record, open for anyone to inspect. There is no head office and no off switch.

Two numbers define how it behaves. New blocks of transactions are added about every 10 minutes. And the total supply is capped at 21 million coins, written into the code from the start. No central bank can print more, which is why supporters compare it to digital gold rather than ordinary cryptocurrency.

New coins enter circulation through mining. Computers compete to validate transactions and add the next block, and the winner earns freshly issued bitcoin. That reward halves roughly every four years, slowly tightening supply until the 21 million ceiling is reached.

You hold bitcoin through a wallet, which stores the private key that controls your coins. The key is everything. Whoever holds it controls the money, so keeping it private matters more than anything else. There is no support line to recover a lost key.

The price moves a lot. Bitcoin has run from cents to tens of thousands of pounds, with steep falls along the way. Banxa has let people buy it through a regulated on-ramp since 2014, across 100-plus countries and 100-plus payment methods.