The Birth of Bitcoin

The purpose of this post is not to provide a market overview or analysis - Instead it's to help broaden your perspective and inspire a curiosity within you.

Many people seem to think, and it is incorrectly advertised that Bitcoin is the first ever Cryptocurrency. I can't blame you if you too think this, so allow me to explain some brief history. It is summarised, and designed to invoke curiosity, so you can do some further reading, and expand your mind, and who knows, come back and correct me?

In 1980, David Chaum founded Digicash, with the vision of creating digital currencies offering privacy and security for online transactions - Due to the rise in support and the fast adoption rate, it caused a lot of overhead costs which eventually caused Digicash to file for Bankruptcy.

In 1996 e-Gold was founded by Douglas Jackson and Barry Downey, e-Gold was tied to the value of gold. Unfortunately e-Gold attracted a lot of people from Criminal Enterprises which used it to facilitate money laundering, especially with International payments. In 2007 both founders faced Criminal prosecution, and e-Gold was shut down.

In 2004, Hal Finney, created the first ever digital currency utilising Proof of Work mechanisms, it was called rPOW. rPOW proved to be a crucial pre-cursor to Bitcoin, however it ultimately failed due to limitations in its design, that did not allow it to scale effectively. This was the first early attempt at a digital cash, based off Nick Szabos theory of collectibles.

Nick Szabos theory of collectibles is otherwise known as "Satoshi Nakamoto's Theory" or alternatively a concept of "Digital collectibles", It's a theory that puts value to the principle of digital assets holding value, that are rare due to their uniqueness or scarcity. The theory is not fully articulated or drawn out, but is reflected in his work on Bit Gold and smart contracts in 1998. This project was never implemented.

In 1998, the official white paper for Bitcoin was released, it was titled "Bitcoin: A peer to peer electronic cash system". This encompassed all of the previous methods of the previous digital tokens before it, and stitched them together, using smart contracts and proof of work, forming the blockchain, whilst simultaneously ensuring there is a public ledger for authoritarian purposes.

It is widely speculated due to the similarities between Bit gold and Bitcoin, that Nick Szabos is actually Satoshi Nakamoto - However he has always denied this allegation, and speculations still continue to this day, on who the founder of Bitcoin actually is.

Whoever it is - They have created something truly amazing, that will no doubt be around for a very long time.

If you enjoyed reading this, and it has invoked your curiosity further, please feel free to comment and start up a discussion, I would also appreciate you following my posts <3