Bitcoin Pizza Glossary

Alice and Bob are fictional characters commonly used as placeholder names in cryptology, as well as science and engineering literature. The Alice and Bob characters were invented by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman in their 1978 paper "A method for obtaining digital signatures and public-key cryptosystems.

An ASIC, or application-specific integrated circuit, is an integrated circuit (fancy word for for computer chip) customized for a particular use. In the case of Bitcoin, ASICs are microchips specifically designed for Bitcoin’s SHA-256 algorithm.

Bitcoin (₿) is a Cryptocurrency. It is a decentralized digital currency that doesn’t rely on a single administrator or central bank. Bitcoin can be sent directly from one user to another user on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network without the need for intermediaries.

Bitcoin Pizza Day takes place on May 22nd of every year to commemorate Laszlo Hanyecz’s purchase of Two Papa John’s Pizzas for 10,000 Bitcoins. The holiday is a significant cultural origin story in the history of Bitcoin, and represents a real-world, commercial use of the cryptocurrency.