Origins of bitcoin

Since it was created in 2009, Bitcoin has experienced significant highs and lows.

Bitcoin is considered the preeminent cryptocurrency in the world, but there's still plenty of mystery surrounding its creation. Who came up with Bitcoin? Was it created by more than one person? And who is Satoshi Nakamoto?

Before bitcoin world...
1998 – 2008: Although Bitcoin was the first established cryptocurrency, there had been previous attempts at creating online currencies with ledgers secured by encryption. Two examples of these were B-Money and Bit Gold, which were formulated but never fully developed.

In the very beginning...
On 18 August 2008, the domain name bitcoin.org was registered. Later that year on 31 October, a link to a paper authored by Satoshi Nakamoto titled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System was posted to a cryptography mailing list. This paper detailed methods of using a peer-to-peer network to generate what was described as "a system for electronic transactions without relying on trust". On 3 January 2009, the bitcoin network came into existence with Satoshi Nakamoto mining the genesis block of bitcoin (block number 0), which had a reward of 50 bitcoins. Embedded in the coinbase of this block was the text:

The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.

The first open source bitcoin client was released on 9 January 2009.

In 2010, Bitcoin was valued for the first time.

As it had never been traded, only mined, it was impossible to assign a monetary value to the units of the emerging cryptocurrency. In 2010, someone decided to sell theirs for the first time – swapping 10,000 of them for two pizzas. If the buyer had hung onto those Bitcoins, at today’s prices they would be worth more than $100 million.

The text refers to a headline in The Times published on 3 January 2009. This note has been interpreted as both a timestamp of the genesis date and a derisive comment on the instability caused by fractional-reserve banking.

After that, rival cryptocurrencies started emerging and we got a whole new industry, which was yet very far away and hidden from the reach of normal people...

2013 – Bitcoin price crashes

Shortly after the price of one Bitcoin reaches $1,000 for the first time, the price quickly begins to decline. Many who invested money at this point will have suffered losses as the price plummeted to around $300 – it would be more than two years before it reached $1,000 again.

2014 – Scams and theft

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a currency designed with anonymity and lack of control in mind, Bitcoin has proven to be an attractive and lucrative target for criminals. In January 2014, the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange Mt.Gox went offline, and the owners of 850,000Bitcoins never saw them again. Investigations are still trying to get to the bottom of exactly what happened but whatever the story, someone dishonestly got their hands on a haul which at the time was valued at $450 million dollars. At today’s prices, those missing coins would be worth $4.4 billion.

2016 – Ethereum and ICOs

One cryptocurrency came close to stealing Bitcoin’s thunder this year, as enthusiasm grew around the Ethereum platform. This platform uses cryptocurrency known as Ether to facilitate blockchain-based smart contracts and apps. Ethereum’s arrival was marked by the emergence of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). These are fundraising platforms which offer investors the chance to trade what are often essentially stocks or shares in startup ventures, in the same manner that they can invest and trade cryptocurrencies. In the US the SEC warned investors that due to the lack of oversight ICOs could easily be scams or ponzi schemes disguised as legitimate investments. The Chinese government went one further, by banning them outright.

2017 –Bitcoin reaches $10,000 and continues to grow

A gradual increase in the places where Bitcoin could be spent contributed to its continued growth in popularity, during a period where it’s value remained below previous peaks. Gradually as more and more uses emerged, it became clear that more money was flowing into the Bitcoin and cryptocoin ecosystem. During this period the market cap of all cryptocoins rose from $11bn to its current height of over $300bn. Banks including Barclays, Citi Bank, Deutsche Bankand BNP Paribas have said they are investigating ways they might be able to work with Bitcoin. Meanwhile the technology behind Bitcoin – blockchain – has sparked a revolution in the fintech industry (and beyond) which is only just getting started.

Whatever your opinion on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency – and educated commenters have described them as everything from the future of money to an outright scam – it seems they are here to stay. Will it succeed in doing what many early adopters and evangelists claim it is destined to – replace government-controlled, centralised money with a distributed and decentralized alternative, controlled by nothing besides market forces? Well, 2018 may yield some clues but we are unlikely to know the answer for some time yet.