Academy

Bitcoin from first principles

Interactive lessons, animated diagrams — and a step-by-step guide to every screen in OpenMine BTC.

Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency invented in 2008 by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. It lets anyone send value to anyone across the internet without going through a bank or payment processor.

The network is maintained by thousands of independent nodes running open-source software. New bitcoins are created — and transactions confirmed — by miners, who compete to add blocks to a shared ledger called the blockchain.

Total supply capped at 21,000,000 BTC.
New blocks arrive roughly every 10 minutes.
Every transaction is public and permanent.

OpenMine BTC is an educational open-source project. Browser mining is not profitable — treat it as a way to understand the protocol, not to earn coins.

Bitcoin from first principles

Introduction to BitcoinPeer-to-peer electronic cash — no bank, no permission.

Bitcoin HistoryFrom a 9-page PDF in 2008 to a global monetary network.

What Is BlockchainAn append-only ledger secured by cryptographic hashes.

Proof of WorkA cryptographic lottery: hash until you find a small number.

SHA-256 ExplainedA deterministic, one-way function mapping any input to 256 bits.

Mining PoolsCombine hashrate with strangers, split the reward.

Solo MiningPoint hashrate at your own node — winner takes all.

Difficulty AdjustmentRetargets every 2,016 blocks to keep blocks ~10 min apart.

Block RewardsSubsidy + transaction fees = block reward.

Bitcoin HalvingThe subsidy halves every ~4 years — hard-coded scarcity.

Mining HardwareCPU → GPU → FPGA → ASIC — a 10⁸× efficiency journey.

ASIC MinersApplication-Specific chips: one job, done fast.

WalletsWallets don't hold coins — they hold keys.

SecurityYou are the bank. Act like one.