Bitcoin (BTC) Overview

BTC is the crypto where it all began. Created not for DeFi, NFT, or metaverses, but for independence from banks and governments. The goal is simple: to store and transfer value that cannot be printed like fiat.

Briefly, for those who skim

Bitcoin is a decentralized cryptocurrency launched in 2009. The quantity is strictly limited: 21 million coins. Not a cent more. Their issuance is pre-programmed, and each new BTC is created through mining — a computationally intensive process requiring real electricity and hardware. This is its “gold-bearing” nature.

When Satoshi Nakamoto published the nine-page whitepaper in 2008, no one thought it would become the foundation of a new financial system. At best, it was a “cool idea for a cyberpunk forum.” Now try going a day in crypto without hearing about bitcoin.
BTC is not just an asset. It’s a symbol. A flag under which both digital anarchists and pension funds fight.

In 2025, bitcoin has again become a tasty morsel for major players. We are witnessing the largest inflow of institutional money since 2021. ETFs from BlackRock, Fidelity, and Ark Invest are no longer rumors but real products. An interesting fact: according to IntoTheBlock, over 69% of BTC is currently held in wallets holding more than 10,000 BTC. These are whales. And these whales don’t swim — they lie still. That means they are not selling.

Secrets of dead wallets

There is a whole “cemetery sector” in bitcoin’s history — these are bitcoins to which no one has access. Private keys are lost. The owner forgot the seed phrase, died, or simply erased the hard drive. One such story is about James Howells from the UK. In 2013, he threw away a hard drive containing keys to 8,000 BTC. Today that is more than half a billion dollars lying under tons of trash. He is still trying to obtain permission to excavate the landfill.

By various estimates, between 2 and 3 million bitcoins are lost forever. That’s about 15% of the total supply. Not hacked. Not stolen. Just permanently removed from circulation. A deflationary tale on steroids.

Mining: a survival game

Bitcoin mining is a race where the winner isn’t the smartest but the best equipped. To mine a block, you must be the first to find the right hash, spending electricity and machine power. The current reward is 3.125 BTC per block, and it continues to halve every 4 years (the so-called halving). The next one is in 2028.

It’s important to understand: mining is not only the method of issuance. It is the guarantee of network security. A 51% attack on the bitcoin network today would require billions of dollars in equipment and energy investment. It’s nearly impossible — which is why it does not happen.

Where to store and buy

Want to buy BTC? You’re not alone — in 2025, a new wave of retail flooded the market after the launch of bitcoin ETFs in the USA.

People buy through Binance, OKX, Bybit, Bitget, Bitstamp, and dozens of other exchanges. But remember the mantra: “Not your keys — not your coins.”

Translation: if you hold bitcoin on an exchange, it’s not your bitcoin. It’s an IOU, a paper receipt. Real BTC lives in a wallet to which you have the private key.

Want to sleep easy? Use cold wallets: Ledger, Trezor. For convenience — BlueWallet or Trust Wallet.

Why do you even need it?

Investors call it “digital gold” — an asset immune to inflation and not controlled by central banks.
But BTC is more than an investment.
It is used:

• as a store of value in countries with unstable currencies (think Argentina and Turkey),
• as a payment method in networks like Lightning,
• as a risk hedging tool in institutional portfolios.

Yes, you don’t buy coffee with BTC every day. But when the banking system cracks, bitcoin becomes more than just a digital asset.

Where is it headed?

The question on everyone’s mind: will bitcoin reach $100,000? $250,000? Or crash to $15k?
The truth, as usual, lies somewhere in the middle. It all depends on macroeconomics, Fed policy, ETF demand, and — most importantly — trust. Bitcoin lives on faith. But it’s not blind faith, it’s faith backed by experience.

• It has already survived three major crashes.
• It has not been banned despite many attempts.
• It cannot be printed, hacked, or seized without access to the keys.
• And that makes it, amid all the other digital chaos, surprisingly stable.

Risks, bans, and forecasts

Risks:

• Volatility: minus 20% in a day is not a joke, but routine
• Regulations: if the SEC changes its mind tomorrow — it will hurt
• Loss of access: lose your private key — lose your wealth
• Energy consumption: environmentalists are unhappy, and it affects perception

Forecast:

• BTC isn’t going anywhere.
• The price could be $100k or $40k — no one knows.
• ETFs gave a new boost, but the rally depends on macroeconomics.

Not financial advice. But if you are holding anything in crypto — BTC has the best chance to survive any cycle.

Conclusion

Bitcoin is like a cast-iron safe: not trendy, not flexible, but it will survive a nuclear attack. It won’t give you 100x overnight like SHIB. But it definitely won’t disappear as long as the internet exists.
If you are entering crypto for the first time — start with it. If you are experienced — keep at least some in your portfolio.

If you just like to watch — you are already involved: when the market’s pulse beats, so does bitcoin’s.
BTC is not a “get rich quick” button. It’s a button to “understand how the monetary world works.”

Bitcoin’s security is not because no one tried, but because they couldn’t. The paradox is that in more than 15 years of its existence, the Bitcoin blockchain itself has never been hacked. There were no 0-day vulnerabilities, no bugs in the core, no backdoors in the source code. Everything lost was not bitcoin itself, but access to it: compromised wallets, hacked exchanges, human negligence.

Why is hacking Bitcoin practically impossible?

• Proof-of-Work as the backbone. To conduct a 51% attack, you need to control over half of the hashrate. Today, that means tens of gigawatts and billions of dollars.
• Open code, but not vulnerable. Bitcoin Core is open-source, and changes go through strict community audits. There have been zero critical bugs in its entire history.
• NSA-level cryptography. The secp256k1 algorithm protects addresses. Key guessing is impossible with modern computing power.
• A network of nodes, not servers. No central point. Remove one node — thousands more continue working. Example: mining ban in China in 2021.

Attack stories — where they tried, but not on Bitcoin itself

• Mt.Gox (2014): loss of 850,000 BTC — flaws in custody, not in the blockchain.
• NiceHash (2017): $64 million stolen — cloud hacked.
• Bitfinex (2016): 120,000 BTC taken by hackers, some later found with “rappers”.
• Lazarus Group (2023): attacked bridges and wallets. Bitcoin remained untouched.

Some technical facts:

• Block hashes form a chain. To fake one block means rewriting the entire chain. Unrealistic without the hashrate.
• Block time — ~10 minutes. Balance between speed, security, and decentralization.
• Difficulty readjusts every 2016 blocks. This makes the network adaptive to load.

When security doesn’t always mean salvation

The network is secure, but the user is not. Lost your seed phrase? — goodbye BTC. Sent to the wrong address? — no rollback. That is why:

• Use cold wallets (Ledger, Trezor)
• Store seed phrases offline (paper, steel, safe)
• Institutionals rely on custodial services with multisignature

The Bitcoin network is one of the most secure in the world. But the main vulnerability is always between the chair and the keyboard.

Bitcoin Network Fees — When You Pay Not for Speed, but for Queue

In Ethereum, gas fees are more or less clear — payment for computations, each byte, contract call, etc. — but in the Bitcoin network, fees are structured simpler and tougher.

Bitcoin fees operate as an auction. You choose how much you are willing to pay a miner to include your transaction in a block. The higher the fee (in satoshis per byte), the better the chance your transaction won’t stay stuck in the mempool for a couple of days.

Real-life example:

• In April 2021, the fee for a regular transfer could reach $60. Why? Because the market was crazy, everyone was sending BTC to exchanges, wallets, OTC, etc. But blocks are limited to 1 MB…
• In January 2023, transaction fees dropped below $1. Why? Because of the “post-bear market,” everyone was inactive, no one made moves.

How are fees calculated?

The formula is simple:
Fee (in satoshis) = transaction size (in bytes) × fee rate per byte
Example:
Your transaction size is 225 bytes
You set 50 satoshis per byte (medium priority)
Result: 11,250 satoshis (~$7 at $67k BTC price)
Paradoxically, the transfer amount does not affect the fee. You can send $10 or $100,000 — the fee is the same if the transaction size is the same.

📉 Why do fees sometimes become very high?

Hype. ETF news, halving, bearish FUD — all create activity spikes.
The mempool becomes crowded. It’s a queue to enter a block. When full, only “the rich” survive.
Ordinals and Inscriptions. In 2023, a trend emerged to “write JPEGs into BTC” — essentially NFTs on Bitcoin. They clogged blocks to “pay or wait a day” levels.

⚡ How to reduce fees?

Use SegWit addresses. They save bytes.
Send transactions off-peak. Usually, nights in UTC are cheaper.
Use the Lightning Network. Lightning-fast micropayments — tiny fees, almost instant speed. But you need to know how to configure channels or trust a provider.
Postpone the transfer. Some wallets (e.g., Electrum) let you set low priority and just wait.

💥 What about exchange fees?

If you withdraw BTC from an exchange:
Binance, OKX, Bitget, and others usually charge a fixed fee from $1 to $5
Some exchanges (especially Asian ones) squeeze users with fees around 0.0006 BTC (~$40+ at peaks)
There are also tricksters who show “0 fee” but internally recalculate at their own rate, causing you to lose 2-3% unfairly
Important: network fee ≠ exchange fee. Exchanges add on top. So compare before hitting “Confirm.”

⚙️ Is the fee burned? Or who gets it?

The fee fully goes to the miner who included your transaction in the block. This is their direct income, alongside the block reward.
As we approach the emission limit (21 million BTC), fees will become the main mining incentive. Here’s the point: without fees, the network cannot survive. It’s payment for security.

📝 Summary

In Bitcoin, you pay for block space, not a blockchain “logo.”
No fixed fee — it all depends on the market, mempool, and your greed.
During calm times — around $50.
There are workarounds (SegWit, Lightning), but they’re not always newbie-friendly.
Miners benefit from network load, users do not. Classic.