Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin at the best possible moment. In 2008 and 2009, the world was shaken by an unprecedented financial crisis. This economic crisis was the result of the reckless monetary policy of central banks. Confidence in traditional banks had collapsed, and people waited for a new kind of currency system. In the first half of the 2010s, Bitcoin's popularity began to grow at a tremendous rate, and it was also possible to do real-world shopping with bitcoin for the first time.
On May 22, 2010, the first real-world purchase was made with bitcoins, when a person named Laszlo Hanyez bought two pizzas with 10,000 bitcoins. This day is now known as Bitcoin Pizza Day. In 2010, numerous new services also began to develop around Bitcoin. The best known of these services was the bitcoin stock exchange called Mt. Gox. The story of Mt. Gox ended in 2014 after being subjected to massive hacking. Mt. Gox's hacking is still one of the most dramatic events in Bitcoin's history today.
A Silk Road marketplace also influenced the spread of Bitcoin's reputation in the first half of 2010. Silk Road was established in 2011 as a marketplace specializing primarily in the sale of drugs. All payments in Silk Road were made in bitcoins. The original Silk Road story finally ended in 2013 when U.S. authorities shut down the service and arrested its founder, Ross Ulbright.
The last sign of Bitcoin founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, was in 2011 when he said that he was moving to other things in an email. Satoshi transferred responsibility for the project to a programmer named Gavin Andersen, who also became the Bitcoin Foundation lead developer. In 2011 the world saw the first bitcoin price bubble when bitcoin's price rose from less than a dollar to 30 dollars and returned after that to two dollars.
Years of Bitcoin growth
The popularity of Bitcoin has grown tremendously since its early years. The use cases of Bitcoin have increased, and more and more investors worldwide have recognized the potential of bitcoin as an investment. Bitcoin has experienced three price bubbles throughout its history; one of them happened at the end of 2013 when bitcoin’s price rose from a hundred dollars to over 1000 dollars in a few months. After that, the bitcoin price was in the downward trend until January 2015, when one bitcoin’s price was less than 200 USD. However, interest in bitcoin and blockchain technology was multiplying.
During 2016, Bitcoin established itself as a phenomenon that couldn’t be unnoticed by banks. Interest in bitcoin was exploding, and this was also reflected in the price of bitcoin. The price of Bitcoin was steadily rising from the beginning of 2015 until 2017. In late 2017, Bitcoin experienced the third price bubble in its history as bitcoin’s price rose to nearly 20,000 USD. As might be expected, the sharp rise in prices also led to an increase in media interest. At the turn of 2017 and 2018, interest in bitcoin was more significant than ever before. The sharp rise in the value of Bitcoin also led to a tightening of Bitcoin regulation. Bitcoin’s regulation was strongly tightened, e.g., In China and South Korea. However, as is always the case with bubbles, the third bubble in Bitcoin’s history ended in a sharp drop in bitcoin’s price.
During its history, Bitcoin has received several different forks, i.e., upgrades. One of bitcoin’s most famous forks happened back in 2017 when Bitcoin’s SegWit update was performed. The SegWit update improved the Bitcoin network’s capacity by changing the way the network secures Bitcoin transactions. The time before the SegWit update also included controversy in the Bitcoin community. The bitcoin community was divided into two different groups. Another group wanted to improve the Bitcoin network’s capacity by increasing the block size of the blockchain. In contrast, the other party wanted to enhance the scalability of Bitcoin through Lightning network technology. In practice, lightning network technology means that smaller bitcoin transactions would be transferred to a completely separate network.
Eventually, the controversy over Bitcoin’s scalability intensified to the point that a group demanding larger block sizes withdrew from the Bitcoin community as its own cryptocurrency before the SegWit update took effect. That cryptocurrency is known today as Bitcoin Cash.
Increasing interest in bitcoin led to new cryptocurrency exchanges at an accelerating pace throughout the 2010s and introducing more bitcoin-linked investment products, such as options and certificates. At the same time, bitcoin has become part of a portfolio of more and more retail investors and institutions. The growing popularity of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has also led to an increase in the cryptocurrency market regulation in recent years.
Bitcoin is more popular today than ever before. The growing popularity of bitcoin has also been reflected in bitcoin’s price. Bitcoin’s unique features make it a unique digital currency. Bitcoin is a potential investment and a competitor to the current banking system. Overall, the future of Bitcoin looks very bright at the moment.
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