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Is bitcoin a technology or is Bitcoin(with a capital B) a specific brand??

If common(seems like what satoshi suggested) why aren't plural bitcoins?

If proper, which clients can claim it? Is it spammable/sybil attacked? Can a marketing campaign hijack the name? How to detect if it happened in the past? (changing a small b to capital B is a common edit on this site mostly done in latter half of bitcoin's existence)

skang404
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  • Possible duplicate of https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/462/5406 – Murch Oct 18 '22 at 20:07
  • Sorry, the possible duplicate does not address the question, especially & as expressed by follow-up secondary questions, meant as a test to clarify the answer. – skang404 Oct 26 '22 at 00:25

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Bitcoin is a proper noun and refers to the protocol(technology) that was created by Satoshi in 2009, developed and maintained by developers from different parts of the world with reference client as Bitcoin Core. Its a protocol for network that can be used to settle payments with BTC or bitcoin as the currency.

There are a few other implementations of the Bitcoin protocol that work in consensus with Bitcoin Core: BTCD, Knots, bcoin, libbitcoin etc.

Satoshi referred bitcoins(lowercase b) for plural. However, people use 'bitcoin' plural as well because there is no authority deciding grammar for it.

If proper, which clients can claim it?

Any Bitcoin implementation that works in consensus with Bitcoin Core as its used by 98% nodes or alternative implementation with different consensus rules that everyone agrees upon could be considered a part of Bitcoin p2p network. This would include users, developers, exchanges, merchants, wallets, lightning community and other economic nodes.

Can a marketing campaign hijack the name? How to detect if it happened in the past?

Maybe. It never happened in my opinion because some early developers are still active and positive about Bitcoin development.

  • Thanks for attempt. The answer seems contradictory. If its a technology(like a website, then there can be many websites) then it can't be a proper noun. Also, as admitted it was released as technology(common noun) by satoshi - when/how did it change? – skang404 Oct 15 '22 at 18:52
  • Thanks for downvoting. It isn't contradictory. There can be many forks and there are. Satoshi was not God and White paper or anything related was not Bible. Its a software which has evolved and will keep evolving. –  Oct 15 '22 at 18:59
  • This question isn't about satoshi being god or whitepaper, stackexchange votes are not likes, please lay off your stories. Also its incorrect that there are many forks of bitcoin called bitcoin. – skang404 Oct 16 '22 at 10:23
  • @skang404 what do you consider bitcoin? –  Oct 17 '22 at 00:07
  • Bitcoin is a peer to peer electronic cash system, where coins can be verified back to the genesis block, based on strongest chain of cryptographic proofs. – skang404 Oct 17 '22 at 06:45
  • I don't see how this is contradictory, it can be both a technology and a proper noun. Other examples of such include Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and USB. These are all names of specific technologies and protocols. – Ava Chow Oct 21 '22 at 16:01
  • @AndrewChow USB is an abbreviation. There can be many USBs, bluetooth & wifi networks but there is only one bitcoin network. – skang404 Oct 21 '22 at 18:46