Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency , a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange that uses cryptography to control its creation and management, rather than relying on central authorities . [1] The presumed pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto integrated many existing ideas from the cypherpunk community when creating bitcoin.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_bitcoin#cite_note-mercatus-1

Pre-history

Prior to the release of bitcoin there were a number of digital cash technologies starting with the issuer based ecash protocols of David Chaum [2] and Stefan Brands . Adam Back developed hashcash, a proof-of-work scheme for spam control. The first proposals for distributed digital scarcity based cryptocurrencies were Wei Dai's b-money [3] and Nick Szabo's bit gold. [4][5] Hal Finney developed reusable proof of work (RPOW) using hashcash as its proof of work algorithm. [6]

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Growth

2011

Based on bitcoin's open source code, other cryptocurrencies started to emerge. [27]
The Electronic Frontier Foundation , a non-profit group, started accepting bitcoins in January 2011,[28] stopped accepting them in June 2011,[29] and began again in May 2013. [30]

2012

In January 2012, bitcoin was featured as the main subject within a fictionalized trial on the CBS legal drama The Good Wife in the third-season episode "Bitcoin for Dummies ". The host of CNBC 's Mad Money, Jim Cramer , played himself in a courtroom scene where he testifies that he doesn't consider bitcoin a true currency, saying "There's no central bank to regulate it; it's digital and functions completely peer to peer". [37]

2013

In February 2013 the bitcoin-based payment processor
Coinbase reported selling US$1 million worth of bitcoins in a single month at over $22 per bitcoin.[41] The Internet Archive announced that it was ready to accept donations as bitcoins and that it intends to give employees the option to receive portions of their salaries in bitcoin currency. [42]

2014

In January 2014, Zynga[80] announced it was testing bitcoin for purchasing in-game assets in seven of its games. That same month, The D Las Vegas Casino Hotel and Golden Gate Hotel & Casino properties in downtown Las Vegas announced they would also begin accepting bitcoin, according to an article by USA Today. The article also stated the currency would be accepted in five locations, including the front desk and certain restaurants. [81]

2015

In January 2015 Coinbase raised 75 million USD as part of a Series C funding round, smashing the previous record for a bitcoin company.[94] Less than one year after the collapse of Mt. Gox, United Kingdom-based exchange Bitstamp announced that their exchange would be taken offline while they investigate a hack which resulted in about 19,000 bitcoins (equivalent to roughly US$5 million at that time) being stolen from their hot wallet. [95]

2016

In January 2016, the network rate exceeded 1 exahash/sec. [102]
In March 2016, the Cabinet of Japan recognized virtual currencies like bitcoin as having a function similar to real money. [103] Bidorbuy , the largest South African online marketplace, launched bitcoin payments for both buyers and sellers. [104]

2017

The number of businesses accepting bitcoin continues to increase. In January 2017, NHK reported the number of online stores accepting bitcoin in Japan had increased 4.6 times over the past year. [112] BitPay CEO Stephen Pair declared the company's transaction rate grew 3× from January 2016 to February 2017, and explained usage of bitcoin is growing in B2B supply chain payments. [113]

Prices and value history

Among the factors which may have contributed to this rise were the European sovereign-debt crisis—particularly the
2012–2013 Cypriot financial crisis —statements by FinCEN improving the currency's legal standing and rising media and Internet interest. [125][126][127][128]
Until 2013, almost all market with bitcoins were in US $. [129]
In the second quarter of 2017, prices more than tripled from $1200 to over $4000.

References

*1. ^ Jerry Brito; Andrea Castillo (2013). "Bitcoin: A Primer for Policymakers" (PDF). Mercatus Center . George Mason University. Retrieved 22 October 2013.

^
Chaum, David (1983). "Blind signatures for untraceable payments" (PDF). Advances in Cryptology Proceedings of Crypto. 82 (3): 199–203.
doi:10.1007/978-1-4757-0602-4_18 .
Chaum, David; Fiat, Amos; Naor, Moni. "Untraceable Electronic Cash" (PDF). Lecture Notes in Computer Science.
^ Dai, W (1998). "b-money" . Archived from the original on 2011-10-04. Retrieved 5 December 2013.
^ Szabo, Nick . "Bit Gold" . Unenumerated . Blogspot.
Archived from the original on 2011-09-22. Retrieved 5 December 2013.
^ a b Tsorsch, Florian; Scheuermann, Bjorn (15 May 2015). "Bitcoin and Beyond: A Technical Survey of Decentralized Digital Currencies" (PDF). Retrieved 24 June 2015.
^ "Reusable Proofs of Work" . Archived from the original on December 22, 2007.
^ a b "Satoshi Nakamoto is (probably) Nick Szabo" .
LikeInAMirror . WordPress. Archived from the original on 2014-04-13. Retrieved 5 December 2013.*

source

HISTORY OF BITCOIN (Further information: Bitcoin)