History of Bitcoin
The world's first decentralized currency.
2007
Satoshi Nakamoto... the legend
According to legend, Satoshi Nakamoto began working on the Bitcoin concept in 2007. While he is on record as living in Japan, it is speculated that Nakamoto may be a collective pseudonym for more than one person.
August 15, 2008
An interesting patent application...
Neal Kin, Vladimir Oksman, and Charles Bry file an application for an encryption patent application. All three individuals deny a connection to Satoshi Nakamoto, the alleged originator of the Bitcoin concept.
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August 18, 2008
Bitcoin.org is registered
Bitcoin.org is born! The domain was registered at anonymousspeech.com, a site that allows users to anonymously register domain names and currently accepts Bitcoins.
bitcoin.org
October 31, 2008
The white paper is published
Nakamoto publishes a design paper through a metzdowd.com cryptography mailing list that describes the Bitcoin currency and solves the problem of double spending so as to prevent the currency from being copied.
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November 9, 2008
The Bitcoin Project hits SourceForge
The Bitcoin project is registered on SourceForge.net, a community collaboration website focused on the development and distribution of open source software.
sourceforge
January 3, 2009
The Genesis Block is mined
Block 0, the genesis block, is established at 18:15:05 GMT.
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January 9, 2009
Version 0.1 is released
Version 0.1 of Bitcoin is released. Compiled with Microsoft Visual Studio for Windows, it lacks a command line interface and is so complete that it furthers speculation that it was developed by more than one person (or by an academic with little programming experience and a great deal of theoretical know-how). It includes a Bitcoin generation system that would create a total of 21 million Bitcoins through the year 2040.
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January 12, 2009
The first Bitcoin transaction
The first transaction of Bitcoin currency, in block 170, takes place between Satoshi and Hal Finney, a developer and cryptographic activist.
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October 5, 2009
An exchange rate is established
New Liberty Standard publishes a Bitcoin exchange rate that establishes the value of a Bitcoin at US$1 = 1,309.03 BTC, using an equation that includes the cost of electricity to run a computer that generated Bitcoins.