What Is Bitcoin Core: The Original Wallet Created By Satoshi Nakamoto

If you’ve been informing yourself about Bitcoin mining, you’ve certainly heard of Bitcoin Core. The open source software was first released in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of BTC, under the name ‘Bitcoin Qt’. According to data collected in 2016, almost 90% of miners used the Bitcoin Core client rather than an alternate software. What is Bitcoin Core for? You’ll find the answers to all your questions and many more below!

Bitcoin Core: a complete Bitcoin client

Bitcoin Core is a Bitcoin client software in the same way MultiBit, Electrum and Bitcoin wallet are. Its USP is that it is the official and original BTC client software, released at the same time as Bitcoin in 2009 by the very creator of BTC. Today, it is used by thousands of people who continually contribute to its network.

In fact, Bitcoin Core allows Bitcoin users to access the Bitcoin network and verify transactions too, making the computers on which it is installed nodes of the network.

Since its first release, it has been the subject of several upgrades by its community. For example there was an update which integrated the ‘Segwit’ protocol, which made it possible to make transactions outside the Bitcoin blockchain, reducing the level of the blockchain’s saturation.

For those who would like to see what Bitcoin Core looks like, you can download it for free from Bitcoin.org. You can even contribute to it if you’re a developer, like any authentic open source software.

The icing on the blockchain cake is that Bitcoin Core also includes a wallet. Let us tell you more below.

Bitcoin Core: The BTC client software with an integrated wallet

Even though Bitcoin Core is BTC client software, it also includes a wallet to store BTC and only BTC. It is a secure solution against the theft and freezing of your Bitcoin by third parties (even if you are not responsible for the security of your cryptocurrency).

This wallet, formerly supported by Windows operating systems only, is now compatible with Mac OSX, Linux, Ubuntu and ARM Linux systems.

It is important to remember that it cannot work independently of the Bitcoin Core client software.  If you are interested in creating a Bitcoin Core account for storing your BTC, follow the guide below.

How to open an account

In this section, we will guide you through the process of creating a Bitcoin Core account.

What do you need to get started?

To create a Bitcoin Core account, you need:

• A computer with at least 200 to 250 GB of storage space (needed to store the whole blockchain plus future blocks)
• An antivirus software to protect your computer
• An internet connection with good speeds and no data restrictions
• USB drives to back-up the wallet

What next?

In order to open your Bitcoin Core account you need to:

1. Download the software from https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-core/
2. Install it and then open it. It can take a long time to load, since the entire Bitcoin blockchain needs to be downloaded onto your hard disk which is several tens of gigabytes 
3. Go to “settings”, once the software has loaded, then to “encrypt wallet” and choose a password made up of a combination of letters and numbers which need to be complex
4. Write down the password on a piece of paper and be sure to keep it in a safe place, because there is absolutely no way of gaining access to your wallet if the password is lost
5. Let the software finish up on its own. Avoid all attempts to interrupt the software processes, this includes accessing task manager
6. Restart the Bitcoin Core client and enter your password

…and you’re done! You can now start using your wallet. To send BTC to the wallet, simply click on “file” then “receiving addresses”.

It is at this point it’s important to remember to be vigilant in order to keep your wallet safe. For example, you should:

• Monitor your browsing behaviour
• Avoid visiting illegal download sites
• Periodically scan the USB drives for viruses on which you have backed wallet up on
• Keep your antivirus software up to date

Making sure you follow these tips is essential, also getting used to using the wallet in general is useful. If you’re tempted to actively participate in the Bitcoin ecosystem, all you have to do is leave your computer on all the time and leave port 8333 open.