• Unit 4: Bitcoin Technology

    Bitcoin has various technical ingredients that combine to provide extraordinary properties not seen in any other form of money available today. First, Bitcoin's immutable ledger enables transactions that are extremely hard to reverse or tamper with. Bitcoin mining also provides a link between real-world energy expenditure and the security of Bitcoin's ledger. Holding your own Bitcoin private keys enables the user to have custody of their own Bitcoins and control them exclusively. Finally, running a Bitcoin node allows users to fully self-validate their Bitcoins and ensure that the rules of Bitcoin are upheld. In this unit, we will also explore some of the trade-offs of Bitcoin against altcoins, and explore how Bitcoin has no leaders but still continues to advance and develop.

    Completing this unit should take you approximately 2 hours.

    • 4.1: Bitcoin's Ledger

    • 4.2: Bitcoin Mining

    • 4.3: Bitcoin Wallets and Nodes

    • 4.4: Who Controls Bitcoin?

    • 4.5: Bitcoin and Open-Source Development

    • 4.6: Bitcoin vs. Altcoins

    • Unit 4 Recap

    • Unit 4 Assessment

      • Receive a grade