What is Bitcoin?
The digital financial system changing the world
Ferenc Kovács
What does the Bitcoin network promise?
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01
Open to everyone
No permission needed. No registration, no age limit, no bank account. Accessible to 8 billion people — all you need is a phone and internet.
1.3 bn
adults have no bank account — 21% of the world's adult population (World Bank Findex 2024).
80%
don't live in a fully free country — only 20% live in a fully free system (Freedom House 2025). Most of Africa, China, Russia, Iran, Middle East, Central Asia: your money can be taken at any time.
2 bn
children worldwide — can't open an account, can't control their own money. Bitcoin: anyone, any age, even without a parent.
€0.25
is enough to buy Bitcoin. No minimum, no portfolio threshold, no wealth manager. Stocks, real estate, serious investments need millions — here you can start from €1.
02
Finite supply
21,000,000. Never more. Can't be diluted, can't be printed. The code guarantees it — not a politician.
Hungarian Forint
2010 money supply16,7 ×10¹² Ft
2024 money supply48,9 ×10¹² Ft
Growth2,93×
Purchasing power loss−66%
Annual avg (CAGR)−7,4%
US Dollar
2010 money supply12,8 ×10¹² $
2024 money supply29,0 ×10¹² $
Growth2,27×
Purchasing power loss−56%
Annual avg (CAGR)−5,7%
03
Always auditable
Every transaction is public. Cent-accurate, real-time. Anyone can verify — from anywhere in the world, anytime, for free.
900,000+ transactions per day, all traceable — every single entry since January 2009.
Question for the room
"When do you think Fort Knox, the US gold reserve, was last fully audited?"
Answer: 1953. More than 70 years ago. Since then, only partial spot-checks and seal inspections — the complete inventory has never been independently audited. The world's largest gold reserve sits behind a closed door. Every satoshi of Bitcoin, by contrast, is open 24/7.
04
Protected by the strongest network
~1,057 EH/s of computing power — there is no stronger network in the world. And it protects your money for free.
~17
Paks II-sized reactors worth of energy — ~20 GW continuous load, ~200 TWh per year. (Paks II: planned Hungarian nuclear plant, 2×1.2 GW)
$170+ bn
one Paks II costs $10+ billion and 10+ years to build — 17× that would be needed to build this at state level. The Bitcoin network, in contrast, emerged spontaneously: nobody recruited the miners, they joined on their own.
4–5×
The combined capacity of every supercomputer in the world is still a fraction of the Bitcoin network — to compete with it, you'd need four to five times that power. No state could break it — not now, not in any foreseeable timeframe.
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OCTOBER 31, 2008
Bitcoin
White Paper
9 pages · 40 years of knowledge · Satoshi Nakamoto
Introductionpage 1
Transactions & Timestamppage 2
Proof-of-Workpage 3
Incentives & Merkle Treepage 4
SPV & Transactionspage 5
Privacypage 6
JANUARY 3, 2009
Genesis Block
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
↓
“The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”
500
years ago
Physical world
gold · house · land
50
years ago
Digital 1.0
files · accounts · passwords
17
years ago
Digital 2.0
Bitcoin — digital possession
Three eras
The new geography of ownership, 17 years ago
For 500 years we've handled banana-like things — gold, houses, land. If it's in your hand, it's really yours.
For 50 years we've been dealing with digital things — files, accounts, passwords. All held in custody by someone else.
For 17 years there's been a digital thing we can own like a banana.
A finished, stable, working system.
Since 2009. Nonstop. No downtime.
6303 days of uptime
The question isn't what Bitcoin is.
The question is when you'll understand it.
The question is when you'll understand it.