All the computers worldwide that make up the Bitcoin validating and mining nodes. Anyone can download the Bitcoin blockchain and become a validating node, which checks the integrity of transactions, both previous and current.
However, although there are no restrictions to being a Bitcoin miner and competing with other miners to add new transactions to the network, mining requires an enormous amount of computing power (see
Bitcoin mining). See
Bitcoin and
crypto glossary.
What Is Bitcoin Really?
Bitcoin uses a unique architecture that was never deployed until Satoshi Nakamoto conceived the idea and implemented it in 2009. Bitcoin can be referred to as any one or all of the following:
blockchain network
distributed ledger
distributed database
distributed network
decentralized ledger
decentralized database
decentralized network
peer-to-peer network
peer-to-peer electronic cash system