Have you ever turned on the news and heard about the cryptocurrency phenomena? You may be asking yourself what is/are cryptocurrencies and how is one able to buy them? Are they protected and where did they come from? With all the news about cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin lately, it is important to look back on the history of Bitcoin to fully understand why it has been such a hot topic.
Before you go online and determine how to buy bitcoin, it is important to realize and study up on the history of bitcoin and how exactly it got started. Cryptocurrencies have been around longer than Bitcoin has been around, however, Bitcoin has been the leading cryptocurrency that has taken the mantle as the face of cryptocurrencies. There were names such as ecash and bit gold available that had working algorithms that are similar to what Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are now. The first sign that Bitcoin was coming into existence was the registration of the domain bitcoin.org in August of 2008. Going forward a few months, Satoshi Nakamoto published a paper entitled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System which included details of how to create transactions online without having to worry about trusting the other user. This paper was released on October 31st, 2008. Later on, in January 2009, the first ever transaction of bitcoin occurred between Satoshi Nakamoto and Hal Finney, a programmer. Early on the price and value of bitcoin was highly debated upon. Until 2010 bitcoin was only mined and was never really traded. However, in 2010 there was a brave soul who decided to sell off 10,000 bitcoins in order to receive two pizzas.
As time progressed and bitcoin was becoming more of a household name, other cryptocurrencies began to emerge in order to create a sense of competition between currencies. Two of the first rivals to emerge were Litecoin, which is still referred to as one of the big three cryptocurrencies, and Namecoin. The growth of cryptocurrencies even got to a point in 2011 where foundations, such as Electronic Frontier Foundation, took in bitcoins as donations early in 2011. In 2013, Coinbase, now a popular application that is on the app store for both iPhone and Androids, sold one million dollars in bitcoin at approximately $22 per coin. 2013 continued to be a bigger year for bitcoin due to agencies such as the FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) created rules and guidelines for bitcoin that would lead to the mining and selling of bitcoin as possibly taxable actions. Bitcoin was also able to surpass the $1000 mark despite declining shortly after.
As bitcoin has grown, it has surpassed the expectations of many, if not all who have observed bitcoin. In 2017 bitcoin would grow to over $10,000 per bitcoin and reach a max value of over $13,000. Even though the price has dropped since 2017, bitcoin has made the news and now everyone is aware that bitcoin exists, and it has created new business for bitcoin to grow in the future.
