Untitled Quiz

Study Notes

Bitcoin supply is limited to maintain currency value and prevent malicious currency generation.
New Bitcoins are generated during the mining process, when a miner discovers a new block.
Block creation rate is adjusted every 2016 blocks to regulate a constant 2 week period.
Bitcoins generated per block decrease geometrically with a 50% reduction every 210,000 blocks.
Total limit of Bitcoins is slightly less than 21 million.
Miners will receive smaller rewards over time as the amount of Bitcoins generated per block decreases.

Bitcoin uses public key cryptography to verify digital signatures.
Each user has one or more addresses with associated public and private key pairs.
To send Bitcoins, the sender adds the recipient's address and transfer amount to a transaction message and signs it with their private key.
The sender broadcasts the transaction message to the network for all users to verify.

Bitcoin is permissionless, meaning users do not need to register their public and private keys.
Transactions are linked to Bitcoin addresses, not usernames or identities.
Bitcoin addresses are mathematically derived from public keys using algorithms like RSA.
Users can have multiple Bitcoin addresses, making it difficult to track ownership and balances.

Bitcoin uses a script to verify transactions instead of just digital signatures and public keys.
The script is designed to be efficient and secure, with a stack-based architecture for evaluating expressions.
Opcodes like OP_DUP, OP_Hash160, OP_EQUALVERIFY, and OP_CHECKSIG help validate transactions.

Transactions must meet certain criteria to propagate through the network, including no conflicts, double spending, or special scripts.
Block propagation latency is the time it takes for a new block to reach a majority of the network.
Bitcoin transactions are designed to be secure and reliable, with robust consensus mechanisms and security features.