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What Is Bitcoin, for Traders

Bitcoin is the first and largest cryptocurrency: a coin that exists as entries on a shared ledger, with a fixed supply of 21 million, a price in dollars per coin and no closing bell. This paper shows what the ledger is, how one real day looks on an hourly chart, how a coin is sliced into lots and units, and what the Specification of BTCUSD says on a platform. After reading it you can read a bitcoin quote, say what a lot and a hundredth of a lot are worth, and find the slice sizes at your broker.

Difficulty
Intermediate
Reading time
5 min
Pages
8
Reviewed by
Saman Rahbar

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Bitcoin, in five lines

Bitcoin is the first and largest cryptocurrency, a coin that exists only as entries on a shared ledger kept by computers all over the world. There will never be more than 21 million, and about 20 million exist now. Its price is in dollars per coin: 78,950.63 at 00:00 on Tuesday 25 August 2026 in this library's bars. A coin splits to eight decimal places, and on a platform one lot, the unit of size, is one coin. That day the price ran from 78,137.85 to 81,304.87, 3,167.02 dollars. For a trader it is a symbol, BTCUSD, with a dollar price to two decimals and no closing bell.

A chain of blocks

Picture a chain of blocks, which is what the ledger behind bitcoin is. Each block is a page of transfers. A new page is added about every ten minutes, and every computer on the network keeps the whole book, from the first page in 2009 to the newest. A coin is not a file you hold; it is the sum of the transfers to you, minus the transfers from you, as the book records them. Nobody holds it for you. That is the point of the design, and it is also why a trader at a broker usually holds a contract on the price rather than the coin itself.

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