Bitcoin is digital money. With it, the system of decentralized transactions was introduced. All this is imitated on a decentralized platform.
Other leading cryptocurrency have since followed suit and entered the market—not all of them have been as successful as Bitcoin! To get further detail on all of the major crypto events in the crypto industry, check out the system ekrona. This platform lets you trade in eKrona, a Swedish national cryptocurrency.
The Birth of the Bitcoin
The birth of Bitcoin was the first step toward creating a decentralized digital currency. Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency (crypto means hidden) which means that it’s decentralized and not controlled by any single entity such as banks or governments.
A crypto-currency does not have to be physical like gold or even paper money; it’s entirely digital, so no physical coins are involved!
Bitcoin is also called blockchain technology because this decentralized system uses blocks of transactions from previous blocks to verify transactions made with other users’ addresses on the network (blockchain).
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Bitcoin Hits its First Big Value Milestone
In 2011, Bitcoin was valued at $0.08 per coin. In 2012, it hit its first major milestone: $1 per coin. At this point in time, there were only about 50 million coins in circulation, and the total value of Bitcoins was around $2 million.
In 2013, Bitcoin reached its second major milestone by reaching a price of over $10 for each unit of currency—a feat that no other currency had ever achieved before (not even gold). By 2014 prices were climbing rapidly toward their highest levels: over $100 per coin!
By 2015 it had reached an all-time high of over US$1000 per BTC!
Mt. Gox is Found Responsible For the Cryptocurrency’s Biggest Theft
Mt. Gox was the first Bitcoin exchange, hacked in 2014. The company lost 850,000 Bitcoins (approximately $450 million at that time) after hackers stole all of its digital currency holdings.
Mt. Gox was responsible for one of the largest thefts in cryptocurrency history, which resulted in a loss of around half a billion dollars worth of Bitcoins from its users’ accounts by hackers who exploited weaknesses in its security system to steal them from wallets stored on its servers.
Satoshi’s White Paper
The White Paper is the original document that describes Bitcoin, and it was published in 2008. It’s not clear who Satoshi Nakamoto was, but he or she did write it in English and Japanese.
The White Paper Describes How Bitcoin Works and Lists its Features:
- P2P system– A peer-to-peer payment system with no central authority to monitor transactions or enforce rules;
- Decentralized—It provides a regulation-free interface for the transaction and exchange of cryptocurrency.
- Anonymity—There are no personal identifiers attached to Bitcoin addresses, so users can’t be tracked easily;
- Digital security- Secure (encrypted) data transfers using public key cryptography for security purposes
Pizza Day
May 22, 2010, was a special day in cryptocurrency history: Pizza Day. That day, Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 BTC for two Papa John’s pizzas from the now-defunct BitcoinTalk forum.
The transaction occurred at 4:18 p.m., with the price of one share at about USD 4 (0.20 BTC). That same pizza would cost you around $84 million when writing this article—not bad for your first order!
Bitcoin has grown rapidly and is currently valued at over USD 17 billion—that’s more than either Amazon or Apple combined!
The Silk Road Closes Down
Here one can buy and sell illegal items, including drugs and weapons. In 2013, it was shut down by the FBI.
In 2013, Silk Road’s revival sparked a huge cryptocurrency boom as investors saw potential in Bitcoin’s anonymity feature (the ability to send money without having your identity revealed). This helped further accept cryptocurrencies and their use on other sites like Silk Road 2.0!
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China Bans Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) And Cryptocurrency Exchanges.
China was the largest market for Bitcoin trading and had a high number of cryptocurrency exchanges. In January 2018, China banned ICOs to protect investors from being scammed or losing money when the purchased tokens didn’t deliver on their promises.
The ban on exchanges is temporary; once this new regulation is implemented, the country’s blockchain industry will be able to bounce back easily.
