Literally BITCOIN (bitcoin) is a "bit" unit of information, a "coin" coin. In fact, bitcoin (official abbreviated BTC) is an electronic payment system (currency), which does not have a single information center, so the system does not have a single owner. You can say that the cue ball belongs to those who use them. By the way, most often in the network bitcoin is called just bits. Electronic crypto currency bitcoin was created in 2009 (development started in 2007), a programmer or a team of programmers with the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto (apparently the Japanese name).