The Early History of the Bitcoin Cryptocurrency

3 min readMay 31, 2023

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency that was created by an anonymous individual who goes by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto. It has become one of the most popular cryptocurrencies in terms of market cap and price, and it’s not hard to see why. Bitcoin can be used to make purchases online or in-person without any third-party interference, which means no banks.

Moreover, its decentralized nature makes it much harder for authorities to track transactions since they don’t have access to bitcoin’s “central server.” The only downside is that you need a lot less space on your computer than traditional currencies because all information about bitcoin transactions is stored on a public ledger called the blockchain.

The Beginning of Bitcoin

It started as an open-source project, which means that anyone could take the code and run it themselves if they wanted to. There are now hundreds of other cryptocurrencies based on Bitcoin’s source code. It wasn’t long before people realized that mining Bitcoins is hard, however — so much harder than traditional currencies were when they first came into existence.

That’s because every time someone successfully mines a block (which happens about once every ten minutes), you get 25 bitcoins for yourself. But how do you know whether or not your computer can even make any money doing this?

And isn’t generating all those hashes going to use uploads up all your electricity bill? It turns out that most people who are mining aren’t doing it to make money. Instead, they’re trying to help support the network by making sure that transactions happen quickly and safely — something they’re rewarded for every time a block is mined!

2011 Bitcoin begins its rise

In 2011, less than two years after Satoshi Nakamoto released his open-source code into the wild for everyone to take advantage of, Bitcoins value had reached parity with US dollars — meaning they could be exchanged directly for American money. Just a year later, the currency’s value had increased tenfold to almost $30 per Bitcoin.

At that point, pretty much everyone was interested in getting involved with mining Bitcoins — even people who didn’t have any expertise in computer science or finance! But it wasn’t until 2013 when you could finally buy something with your Bitcoins themselves.

Now over 15000 different companies are selling their products for bitcoins worldwide — including Microsoft and Dell! This means they will receive payment directly from customers rather than through credit card payments processors like Visa or PayPal which take processing fees out of each transaction before merchants ever see the money.

2014 saw an enormous spike in interest surrounding cryptocurrencies, especially since then Bitcoin has reached the $60,000 mark and many people predict it will break the $100,000 mark before the end of 2021.

Final Thoughts

Will bitcoin remain as popular and valuable as it is today, or are we witnessing a bubble that might soon burst? Only time can tell — but don’t worry about understanding how to use Bitcoins just yet. Give yourself some more time to learn before you dive in head first!

So, what will the future hold for Bitcoin? It’s still anyone’s guess!

Read this article to have Idea as to what history bitcoin has made.