As we all know by now, the Bitcoin ecosystem consists of users, miners, software developers, and applications, such as exchanges, wallets, and blockchain explorers. Other stakeholders are expected to get increasingly involved as well. It is highly likely that regulators and government agencies will pay more attention to the ecosystem in future. The following diagram represents the Bitcoin ecosystem:
All participants in the Bitcoin network run software, which is developed and maintained by software engineers.
Bitcoin was first developed as a software protocol by Satoshi Nakamoto, who produced the initial code base. Shortly after the launch, Satoshi passed on the continued development and maintenance of the code to a group of software development enthusiasts who embraced the idea. This initial group has evolved into the core development...