Bitcoin Core
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The start screen under Fedora
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| Original author(s) | Satoshi Nakamoto |
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| Developer(s) | Bitcoin Core developers |
| Initial release | 2009 |
| Stable release | 0.13.2 (January 3, 2017) |
| Repository | github |
| Development status | Active |
| Written in | C++ |
| Operating system | Linux, Windows, OS X |
| Type | |
| License | MIT License |
| Website | bitcoincore |
 Visualization of code changes during 2015
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Bitcoin Core is a reference client of bitcoin. Initially, the software was published by Satoshi Nakamoto under the name Bitcoin, then Bitcoin-Qt and later renamed to Bitcoin Core. It is also known as the Satoshi client. It is a full client used by bitcoin nodes that create the bitcoin network. Since its introduction, the majority of bitcoin miners support its use. In this way, the developers of Bitcoin Core are sanctioned to make changes to the underlying bitcoin protocol. As of 2017[update], Bitcoin Core is maintained by Wladimir J. van der Laan.
The MIT Digital Currency Initiative funds some of development of Bitcoin Core. The project also maintains the cryptography library libsecp256k1 and others located at GitHub. In August 2016, a warning was issued regarding the software being targeted by state-sponsored attackers. The Bitcoin Foundation also warns that running the software may attract attacks which limit available download bandwidth.
It includes a transaction verification engine and connects to the bitcoin network as a full node. Moreover, a wallet, which can be used to transfer funds, is included by default. The wallet allows for the sending and receiving of bitcoins. It does not facilitate the buying or selling of bitcoin. It allows users to generate QR codes to receive payment.
The software validates the entire blockchain, which includes all bitcoin transactions ever. This distributed ledger which has reached more than 80 gigabytes in size must be downloaded or synchronised before full participation of the client may occur. A command line-based daemon with a JSON-RPC interface, bitcoind, is bundled with Bitcoin Core. It provides access to testnet, a global testing environment that imitates the bitcoin main network or Mainnet. It uses an alternative blockchain where real bitcoin are not used and the blockchain cannot be adversely affected. Regtest or Regression Test Mode creates a private blockchain which is used as a local testing environment. bitcoin-cli is the third program included. It allows users to send RPC commands to bitcoind.
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