Bitcoin is a digital currency that functions without a central authority through the use of cryptography and a peer-to-peer network. It was introduced in 2008 by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin uses cryptography through asymmetric public/private keys to verify transactions between users, and a distributed blockchain ledger records all transactions that have occurred. New bitcoins are generated through a process called "mining" where users lend their computing power to verify transactions and are rewarded with new bitcoins for successfully adding new blocks to the blockchain.