🦾History behind cryptocurrencies

The Beginning (2008-2010)

On October 31, 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto published the white paper called Bitcoin – A Peer to Peer Electronic Cash System, describing the functionality of the Bitcoin blockchain network. Satoshi formally began work on the bitcoin project on August 18th, 2008, when they purchased Bitcoin.org. While it is not the subject of this article, it is worth noting that Bitcoin, and all cryptocurrencies, would not be possible without blockchain technology.

The history of Bitcoin was now underway. Satoshi Nakamoto mined the first block of the Bitcoin network on January 3, 2009. Satoshi embedded the headline of the newspaper The Times on the first block in order to permanently refer to the economic preconditions that lead to the technology of Bitcoin. This first block of 50 Bitcoins is now referred to as the Genesis Block. Bitcoin had almost no value for the first few months of their existence. Six months after they started trading in April 2010, the value of one Bitcoin was less than 14 cents. In May the pizza was bought, and by early November it surged to 36 cents before settling in at around 29 cents.

The Market Begins to Form (2010-2014)

While it was not worth much yet, Bitcoin was showing it had real world value. In February 2011 it rose to $1.06 before coming back down to 87 cents or so. In the spring, in part due to a Forbes story on the new “crypto currency,” the price took off. From early April to the end of May, the cost for a Bitcoin rose from 86 cents to $8.89.

In 2012, Bitcoin prices grew steadily, and in September of that year the Bitcoin Foundation was founded to promote Bitcoin’s development and uptake. Ripple, another new cryptocurrency, is financed by venture capitalists.

In 2013, amid federal, criminal, regulatory, and software related issues, Bitcoins price constantly rose and crashed. On November 19 its price reached $755 just to crash down to $378 the same day, and by November 30 it was all the way up to $1,163 again. This was the beginning of another long-term crash that ended with Bitcoin dropping back down to $152 by January 2015.