Bitcoin has been around since 2009, despite the fact that it is often described as a new phenomenon, and the technology that it is based on has origins that go back much farther. In point of fact, if you had put even just one thousand dollars into Bitcoin in the year that it became accessible to the general public, you would have an additional 36,7 million dollars in your bank account right now. Learn more at https://biti-codes.io/.
Those who fail to draw lessons from the past are destined to repeat its errors; with that in mind, the following is a concise history of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
1998 – 2009 The time period before Bitcoin
Although Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency to become widely used, there had been other efforts at developing online currencies using ledgers that were encrypted before Bitcoin came along. B-Money & Bit Gold are two instances of this kind of cryptocurrency that were conceived of but never brought to fruition.
2010: The year that Bitcoin was initially given a monetary value
It was impossible to ascribe a monetary value to units of the developing cryptocurrency since it had never been sold; mining was the sole activity associated with it. In 2010, someone made the decision to sell theirs for the very first time, and they did so in exchange for ten thousand pizzas. If the buyer had held on to those Bitcoins, at today’s market they would be worth more than one hundred million dollars. This is assuming that the buyer had not used them.
2011 – Rival cryptocurrencies appear
The first rival cryptocurrencies are beginning to emerge as Bitcoin’s popularity continues to rise with a growing interest in the concept of decentralized and encrypted money. These are also referred to as alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins), and they typically aim to improve upon the design of the original Bitcoin by providing higher speed, more privacy, or some other benefit. Namecoin and Litecoin were two of the earliest cryptocurrencies to appear. There are now over a thousand different cryptocurrencies available for use, and new ones are continually being introduced.
The value of a bitcoin plunges in 2013
As soon as the price of one Bitcoin crosses $1,000 for the first time, the price starts to rapidly decrease and continues to do so for some time after that. Many people who bought money at this time would have seen their investments go down the drain as the price fell to approximately $300; it would be more than two years before it hit $1,000 again.
Con artists and thieves in 2014
The fact that criminals have found Bitcoin to be an appealing and profitable target may not come as much of a surprise given that it is a form of currency that was designed with the goal of anonymity and lack of control in mind. When the biggest Bitcoin exchange in the world, Mt.Gox, went down in January 2014, the owners of 850,000 Bitcoins were unable to retrieve their assets again. Someone did something dishonest to get their hands on a haul that was at the time valued at 450 million dollars. Investigations are still ongoing to get to the bottom of precisely what occurred, but regardless of the tale, someone did something dishonest to get their hands on a haul. If they were found now, the value of those lost coins would be around $4.4 billion.
2016 was the year of Ethereum and its initial coin offerings.
During the course of this year, another cryptocurrency came dangerously near to overshadowing Bitcoin due to the growing interest in the Ethereum platform. For the purpose of facilitating blockchain-based smart contracts and applications, this platform makes use of a cryptocurrency known as Ether. Initial coin offerings (ICOs) were the defining moment that signified the debut of Ethereum (ICOs). In the same way that one may invest in and trade cryptocurrencies, these are fundraising platforms that provide investors the opportunity to trade what are basically stocks or shares in startup businesses. Often, these stocks or shares are in the form of cryptocurrency. Due to the absence of monitoring, the US Securities and Exchange Commission issued a warning to investors that initial coin offerings (ICOs) might easily be frauds or Ponzi schemes masquerading as legal investments.
2017: Bitcoin’s price exceeds $10,000 and keeps rising steadily.
During a time when Bitcoin’s value was consistently lower than it had been in the past, the cryptocurrency’s continuous rise in popularity was fueled, in part, by a steady expansion in the number of locations where Bitcoin could be spent. As time progressed and new applications were discovered, it became abundantly evident that an increasing amount of capital was entering the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency ecosystem. During this time span, the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies went from an all-time low of $11 billion to an all-time high of almost $300 billion. A number of financial institutions, including Barclays, Citi Bank, Deutsche Bank, and BNP Paribas, have publicly said that they are studying potential methods in which they may collaborate with bitcoin. In the meanwhile, the technology that underpins Bitcoin, known as the blockchain, has spurred a revolution in the field of fintech (and beyond), which is just in the beginning stages of its development.