Bitcoin is the original, world-first decentralized peer-to-peer global payment network. Created in 2008 as a reaction to the economic collapse caused by widespread corruption in the banking and broader financial system, the mysterious and as yet-unknown Satoshi Nakamoto envisioned a currency that would enable the transfer of value with no intermediary. This new form of currency would act as an inherently scarce asset, with a limit of no more than 21 million coins to ever be mined.
Bitcoin was, therefore, carefully and cleverly designed to act as a sort of digital gold that could store and transact value and data without sacrificing security or scarcity.
As the original and longest-living decentralized transaction network, Bitcoin enjoys, by far, the greatest security and integrity of all blockchains via the enormous hashing power of its global network.
Bitcoin is a UTXO blockchain network that uses cryptographic proof-of-work consensus to confirm transactions and to generate new blocks. Much of the network is maintained by highly powerful ASIC miners, generating an enormous quantity of hashing power, thus preventing any single entity from being capable of attacking the blockchain’s integrity.