(6 minutes read)
Almost 10 years ago, to be more precise on August the 18th 2008, just one day before my 26th birthday the domain name bitcoin.org was released. I clearly remember this day because just less then a month I had applied for a job on the Cruise Ships. And in the evening I got e-mail that I was hired and I need to board on September 8th in New York. LOL. If I knew back then about Bitcoin, and how big impact is going to be today, I was probably going to invest a lot of money into it. But anyway I didn’t so let’s get back to the topic. On 31st of October the same year Satoshi Nakamoto (the unknown person or a group of people), published a paper on the cryptography mailing list metzdowd.com describing the bitcoin digital currency. It was titled: “Bitcoin, a peer to peer Electronic Cash System”.
In January 2009Nakamoto released the first bitcoin software that launched the network, and the first units called bitcoins. He claimed that he began working in 2007, and he continued to collaborate with other developers until 2010. Where in 2010 he handed over control of the source code repository and network alert key to Gavin Andresen (software developer), transferred several related domains to various prominent members of the bitcoin community, and stopped his involvement in the project. Nakamoto’s identity was never found, although he claimed that he is a 37 year old male who lived in Japan. But many people speculated that he has nothing to do with Japan, because of his perfect English and the fact that Bitcoin software was never documented or labeled in Japanese. The public Bitcoin transaction log shows that Nakamoto’s known addresses contain roughly one million bitcoins. As of 17th December 2017 this is roughly worth over 19 billions. Which makes Nakamoto the 44th riches person on Earth. There is still doubt about the real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto.
It is believed that the value of the first bitcoin transaction was 10.000 bitcoins for Two Pizzas at Papa John’s. Over the next three yearsbitcoin will become even more popular and reaching many milestones
On August 6th 2010 was the first vulnerability in the Bitcoin protocol. And this vulnerability was exploited on August 15th where over 184 billion of Bitcoins were generated in a transaction and send to two addresses on the network. However this transactions was discovered immediately and erased after the bug was fixed. And this was the only major security in the Bitcoin’s history.
The growth of Bitcoin:
2011 – A lot of organizations like Electronic Frontier Foundation, Wikileaks and many others started to accept Bitcoin. Over 5 million bitcoinshave been created by this time but it was still well under 21 million to be created. Between 2011 and 2012 many new market places got opened as more and more people began to find out about bitcoin. On June 2nd 2011 the bitcoin price reached 10$.
2012 – The value of the bitcoin started to grow. So, as the value grow a lot of criminals, hackers wanted to get their piece of the pie. So on March 1st 2012 around 50.000 bitcoins were pilfered (stolen) from a security breach at the web host Linode. This made people realized that bitcoin has a lot of value and made it even more valuable. Unfortunately this wouldn’t be the only theft of bitcoin during it’s lifetime, but it was the largest at this point, and also made a lot of people notice bitcoin.
In September 2012 The Bitcoin Foundation was set up. There has been a lot of conferences during the previous two years, but there was no Foundation. And this Foundation was formed so it can standardize, protect and promote bitcoin around the world.
2013– Bitcoin is starting to really increase it’s value. March 28 market cap reaches 1 billion and this certainly got the attention of many people. The first bitcoin ATM appears in San Diego California on May 2.
November is the month of big changes for Bitcoin. Since March till November the bitcoin price has gone from 47$ to astonishing 1072$ per one bitcoin. On November 18th the US Senate holds a hearing about bitcoin and it is announced under the tittle: ‘Beyond Silk Road’. Potential Risks, Threats, and Promises of Virtual Currencies. Many of the panelists and Senators agree that Bitcoin holds great promise.
November 19– Bitcoin transactions surpasses Western Union.. November 20th People’s Bank of China is OK with Bitcoin. Mr Yi at an economic forum says that ‘people are free to participate in the Bitcoin market’, and that he would ‘personally adopt a long-term perspective on the currency’.
November 22nd – Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic begins accepting Bitcoins. November 29th the largest exchange Mt. Gox, bitcoin price peaks at 1242$ per Bitcoin. This is a result to the rapidly growing Bitcoin investment from China. The Chinese citizens embrace the freedom provided by Bitcoin with open arms.
December 5– Chinese Government Bans financial institutions from using Bitcoin. The People’s Bank of China puts it’s first restraints on Bitcoin. They declared Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention not to be a currency. They prohibit any financial institution to trade, insure or offer services related to Bitcoin. And over the following weeks more restrictions slowly strangle the Chinese Cryptocurrency markets. And prices around the glove start to drop down. In just 10 days the price will drop at 839$. The start of 2013 was great for Bitcoin, and the investors, but at the end of the year investors are losing their money as the price continue to drops in 2014.
2014 – DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks, scams thefts are increasing. Bitcoin is becoming more attractive to hackers and criminals. February 7th Mt. Gox the world’s largest exchange, Bitstamp and BTC all experienced a stoppage trading due to massive DDoS attacks. However only Mt. Gox halted (stopped) withdrawals first on February 6th which resulted in a drop in BTC price. The DDoS attack was detected on February 11th 2014. February 24th Mt. Gox closes. After they’ve put the halt to withdrawals on February 6th, claiming that a hacker exploited their poor software through attacks, bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox’s website and trading engine shut’s down without any official explanation. Many exchanges and Bitcoin businesses issue a joint statement about the mismanagement and deception of Mt. Gox. A leaked document showed that over 744.000 Bitcoins were lost by the company. The Bitcoin price in two months dropped from 1242$ to 547$ per Bitcoin, which is more then half.
March 6– Newsweek Claims Dorian Nakamoto is Bitcoin’s Creator. The price is 662$. This drives an enormous attention worldwide to Dorian Nakamoto (unemployed engineer in Temple City, California). Dorian denies any involvement with Bitcoin. March 26th the IRS Declares Bitcoin to be taxed as property not a currency. This decision is very complex and within 10 days the price will drop to 453$.
TO BE CONTINUED….
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