the worlds biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization turns 9 today – October 31st, 2017, marking nine years since the day that Satoshi Nakamoto brought the peer to peer digital cash system to the market. As the cryptocurrency giant reaches its highest highs in price for its ninth year of existence, exceeding 6000USD per BTC, let’s take a look at the major milestones over the Bitcoin lifespan to date.
2008
October 31st 2008
Satoshi Nakamoto released the white paper that defines a “bitcoin” – naming the currency as a conjunction of “bit” and “coin” to signify the cryptocurrency’s purpose in an application.
Satoshi Nakamoto – An Anonymous Founder
Despite numerous in-depth investigations and searches, to this day the founder of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, remains unknown
2009 – Mining Launched
Bitcoin was released as open source software in 2009 and set off a course of action that has changed the world of finance and transaction processing forever. Mining for Bitcoin began in 2009 and utilizes the blockchain technology that is fast finding wider applications across various additional industries and cryptocurrencies today.
2010 – 0.5 USD/ BTC
In November of 2010 Bitcoin market value exceeded a total amount of $1 million. Bitcoin circulation had been growing slowly and steadily up until this point but experienced a sizeable surge in 2010 pushing the BTC price up to $0.50/BTC.
2011
Dollar Parity
The gradual momentum in price continued through to 2011, and in February 2011 Bitcoin reached parity with the US dollar for the first time – marking a major milestone for the revolutionary currency system. In addition, by June of the same year, the Bitcoin price had rocketed through to a huge 31USD per BTC and a total market capitalization of 206USD million.
2013
Federal Reserve garners attention to BTC
By March 2013 Bitcoin had experienced a further growth surge reaching a market capitalization of 1USD billion. In particular, legal and regulatory bodies began to take notice of the growing crypto coin by the end of the year. For example, in November 2013,
the US Senate held their first hearings on Bitcoin, and the price soared above 700USD/ BTC. Meanwhile, US Federal Reserve chairman of that time, Ben Bernanke, commented with public support for Bitcoin that it “may hold long-term promise, particularly if the innovations promote a faster, more secure and more efficient payment system”.
2014
Growing Acceptance
By 2014 Bitcoin was becoming increasingly accepted by global companies in their various operations – in particular, as of December 2014 PayPal, Microsoft and Dell were accepting Bitcoin. In addition, 2014 marks the year that UK tax body, HMRC, classified bitcoin as assets or private money and announced that no VAT will be charged on the mining or exchange of bitcoin. This major milestone indicates Britain’s crypto friendly stance at the time – placing the UK at the most progressive end of the spectrum across the globe.
Derivatives driving Institutional Interest
By October 2014, TeraExchange made the public announcement that the first bitcoin derivative transaction was executed on a regulated exchange – further attracting institutional investors in the cryptocurrency space.
2015
Worldwide Acceptance
As of February 2015, over 100,000 businesses across the globe accepted bitcoin. Increasingly, in 2015 Bitcoin was being held for investment purposes. In addition, the New York Stock Exchange was secured as a minority investor in Coinbase’s $75M funding round towards Bitcoin exchange development.
2017
Price and Volume Explosion
With the growing momentum in the cryptocurrency space overall Bitcoin trading volumes soared in 2017 – and with this price has soared over 750% in the past year. There have been a rapidly increasing number of ICOs released this year and on top of this Blockchain technology has attracted sizeable interest and investment across the globe.
More and more businesses are accepting Bitcoin and exchanges are readily available to everyday investors looking to trade Bitcoin – such that market participants have grown in vast number because the hurdles of slow mining have been overcome through trading directly on the exchange. Further to this, Cambridge University research has shown that in 2017, there are between 2.9 to 5.8 million unique users using a cryptocurrency wallet, the majority of which is for bitcoin use.