An Engineer's History of Cryptocurrency, Satoshi Nakamoto, and How We Got Here

So besides this being a long story, this is going to be a non-linear story.

And multi-part. Again, this is going to be a long story.

Before you listen to the ramblings of a fool. I'll tell you a bit about this fool.

He went to school for film and computer science. He's in the database space. He has a love of Chuck Palahniuk's writing style. And grew up with Quentin Tarantino and Memento.

I got into cryptocurrencies in late 2013, as far as myself and the IRS knows. A few months before Coinbase began keeping my ledgers, I owned Bitcoin stored in Mt.Gox that I had purchased at 3:30AM in a Walgreens using a dirty red Moneygram phone, doing exactly what my parents told me not to do. Wire money across state lines. Perhaps internationally? To acquire a technologically-focused "Internet money".

I was told of this "Internet Money" by a friend of mine. At the time it was $5 per coin, jumping from cents. I remember thinking well, from cents to $5, that's not much. My friend was quick to point out that i was the multiplier that mattered. 100x considering that Bitcoin started out being worth 5 cents.

Around the time the Sacagawea Dollar was big news, I saw a news report of some inner city within a major city like Chicago, Detroit, or New York, that started using a coin within their neighborhood. The Federal Reserve did not like that and the FBI raided all the shops. I thought to myself: that wasn't fair. But I remembered what the history books had taught me: a unified coin oiled transactions within a community, let the economy thrive, and let us focus on furthered innovations. Just as agriculture did for basket weaving.

So no, this $5 coin will never be worth $50. And if it did, the FBI would shut it down.

Now I'm withdrawing $600 cash and sending it to a duo: one of which, Charlie Shrem, would later go to prison after the judge called him a "brilliant visionary". Turns out that he didn't ask for my photo ID before accepting my money at Walgreens.

The other I would later meet in person at a drink-up for the 2012 Blockchain conference. He looked familiar. I thought I had seen him at a Factom-run Bitcoin Meetup. He said perhaps Reddit. I asked his name. Erik Voorhees sounded familiar, but just said hi and bullshitted with him for a few moments. He is now the CEO of ShapeShift and Prism.

The market worth of Bitcoin had fallen from $300 to $50, back to $120 and was now going towards $90, possibly $70. I had already talked to my bae and figured now was the time, when it was cheap.

I had started reading the Bitcoin Whitepaper. This is a great read. Probably required reading. Not even joking. If you're in this space. You have to read it. This is what you're betting your money, time, and resources on. Unless you only hold Ether, but more on that later.

So yes, read this: Bitcoin Whitepaper.

You won't understand it, but read it 3 times. It will start to make some sense. That's all you need to know.

Again. Read this: Bitcoin Whitepaper.

And Satoshi Nakamoto's elegance in the Bitcoin forums made me want to back this philosophy, technology, and revolution. But this didn't stop my hands from shaking as I handed the Walgreens' employee my cash. Which should have been going towards paying down my credit card debt.

The drive home was weird. It should have taken 15-30 minutes for the funds to move from BitInstant to my Mt.Gox number. The drive home was only 5 long minutes.

And there it was. All $600 USD, minus the Moneygram, BitInstant, and probably third-party fees. But all the same.

I also didn't want to ask myself how this money would get converted back to USD. The investment was that one day, we wouldn't need to convert it back to USD.

Then there was the climb to $1200.

And the fall to $300 when I was driving back from the Thanksgiving holidays.

And then, just as we all said we would. Our Bitcoin became our long-term investments. The Reddit community consoled each other. We made it fun as the community and technology continued to grow.

Now we're at $3000, then back to $2100, and at the time of this writing, hovering at around $2500. Ready to move violently at the result of July 18th US Federal Blockchain Forum, with General Services Administration and the State Department in attendance.

And the New York Accord. Where a group of people want to fork Bitcoin. More on that later. But that accord has an expiration of August 1st for certain issues and a hard-fork might be near. But even if not, there's enough Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt and countering bullishness to make for an emotional ride for some. But act as fun roller coaster for myself. After ~5 years in this space.

Also, before I forget, Goldman's predicted Bitcoin would have a market worth of $3,915 during the next breakout.

In this multi-part series I'll try to cover topics which include:

• HTTP
• Satoshi Nakamoto
• Not Satoshi Nakamoto, Craig Wright
• SegWit
• Scaling Issues
• Gavin Anderson
• Hal Finney
• A Bit on the Federal Reserve
• Computer Security
• Network Security
• Ether

amoung many others.

Feel free to leave comments if you ever need clarification or want sources. I read too much bullshit to sift through looking for old sources. And can possibly have gotten my head filled with misinformation, which is highly probable in this age of journalism and Reddit posts. I'll then try to update the post to give a more source-ful polish.

Let me know what topics you would also like me to cover and if they are within my rang of knowledge, I'll include only as much as I know, or try to point you in the right direction.

When you read this, do play it out like a movie. I hope that is exactly what you see while reading this non-linear mess of a history.

I hope to make it easy for Non-Technical Beginners to grasp a wide-array of financial and technical concepts. Explaining in depth when I know. But feel free to skip those paragraphs. Everything is important, but not everything is required learning.

I hope you enjoy these posts.

To the moon!

-- cryptolux

Bringing a small amount of light to a tiny sliver of history.

For the benefit of my friends, family.

And whoever you people are. You seem alright too. :)