A quick and fascinating history of bitcoin

Over the course of the last few months, nearly everyone has been talking about the bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The reason for this is very simple, BTC value against USD and other major currencies started climbing sky-high. The more speculative value the bitcoin has, the more people talk about it. In this article we will not focus on bitcoin trading, investing in the cryptocurrencies or any other ways of generating income out of the coins. Instead of it, we will simply make a quick snapshot of the bitcoin’s history based on this useful Investoo’s Infographic, from its day until early 2017.

The early times
Bitcoin has come to live in January 2009. Few month before that, a certain paper that was explaining the whole peer-to-peer network and the cryptography behind the blockchain technology was posted online and sent out to cryptography enthusiasts. This was also the time when the first block of bitcoins was mined by its creator, and the reward for it was an impressive amount of 50 bitcoins. Today the value of this block is nearly 130,000 USD. During these times, the bitcoin was mostly adopted by the geeks, as they were quite impressed with the general theory and the technology behind the bitcoin.

This was also the period when the first and (so far) the only of the Bitcoin vulnerability. Somehow it was possible to bypass the verification system and create countless bitcoins out of nothing, yet the bug was quickly spotted and resolved within the few hours.

Getting big
Bitcoin has quickly become popular due to the anonymity of the transactions that it has got to offer. Also, more believers were joining the bitcoin camp, they were simply acquiring this cryptocurrency because they were fascinated by the idea of owning money that does not depend on any government. As a result, in February 2011 the bitcoin’s rate became equal to USD, hence one bitcoin was trading just for one dollar. While this certainly sounds amusing now, it was actually a major step back in a day. After the parity has come, the bitcoin’s rate started growing really fast, as many people have seen the investing and speculative opportunities.

However, the dark times have come when the largest (that time) bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, was hacked. The bitcoin’s value dropped from $16 to $3 within just a few minutes. Still, even though the BTC/USD rate was extremely low, it has already put some dent into the daily lives of people and it meant only one thing – the bitcoin will not be gone anytime soon.

The modern times
After Bitcoin has received lots of exposure, the government understood that they should not, and cannot, fight the digital currencies. After some discussions, the bitcoins started getting some legal status. The IRS in the US has stated that the bitcoin is a “property”, while the European authorities are seeing BTCs as a currency. Also, some authorities, like UK Gambling Commission, have declared that BTC can be operated by the casinos and they actually see any cryptocurrencies to be identical to regular money.

All of those factors have majorly contributed towards the fast growth of the bitcoin, yet it still remains mostly speculative and very volatile currency.