Trustless

The term “trustless”, in the context of public blockchains, refers to the power of a cryptographically secure decentralized network and immutable public ledger. The Bitcoin blockchain is free and freely available for anybody to use and view. The software is free, and every transaction in the network’s history is permanently available. With such a high degree of transparency, there is no need for a third-party source of truth, such as an accounting firm, to review the ledger. And since there is no centralized computer system, there is no single point of failure which can be compromised. Bitcoin is trustless since the network itself can be audited at any time by anybody, and there is no need to trust any single person or entity.