It seems that nowadays you can’t pick up a newspaper or log onto a news website without seeing some kind of Bitcoin or cryptocurrency related news. But what about the beginning of Bitcoin, when did Bitcoin start?

The first digital currencies

 

Before Bitcoin was released there were a few other digital currencies in existence such as b-money which was created by Wei Dai, and Bit Gold which belonged to Nick Szabo. Although these were merely just ideas and were never implemented properly, however the latter was said to be a ‘direct precursor to the Bitcoin architecture’. It was not until the release of Bitcoin that a digital currency being implemented properly could become a reality.

 

It was in August 2008 that the domain name bitcoin.org was first registered, with the white paper (a document, in the form of a persuasive essay, published by a business to promote a certain product, service or viewpoint), being published on 31 October that year. The white paper was written by Satoshi Nakamoto who you can find out more about in our blog article here. In this paper he stated that he wanted to create a digital payment system which would not rely on third parties such as banks and credit card companies, and that a peer-to-peer cash system would be a much safer and trustworthy, and that it’s a better way to verify payments rather than relying on the aforementioned third parties to do this.

In answer to the question when did Bitcoin start, perhaps a good answer to this would be on the 12 January 2009 when the first Bitcoin transaction took place, because after all isn’t this the main purpose of a currency? The first transaction consisted of 10 Bitcoins which were sent to Hal Finney from Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto. It was then one year later in 2010 that the first payment with Bitcoin was completed, with Laszlo Hanyecz using 10,000 BTC to purchase pizza from Papa John’s.

 

In the years that followed the first Bitcoin transaction other cryptocurrencies started to emerge, particularly around the year 2011, as it was then that more and more companies started to accept Bitcoin as a method of payment. One of the most notable was the infamous Wikileaks website which is of course run by Julian Assange.

In recent years more and more cryptocurrencies are being released, particularly as many people see the enormous growth which was enjoyed by Bitcoin and they try to replicate this. So what does the future hold for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency? Keep your eyes peeled for a future blog article which will take a look at what could happen in the near future.