By now, you have at least heard about Bitcoin. It has become widely talked about, and people have been calling it and the blockchain technology it relies on game-changers in the world of finance. But how did this rise happen?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s fascinating just how rapid the Bitcoin and blockchain\u2019s rise in popularity was, given their age. Bitcoin and blockchain came about in 2009, as the brainchild of the anonymous entity known as Satoshi Nakamoto. The idea for what it will become, however, first appeared a tad earlier, in August of 2018.<\/p>\n
The First Years<\/strong><\/p>\n Satoshi\u2019s original idea for Bitcoin and blockchain was laid out in the now famous white paper simply titled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. This is when the world took its first peek into the future that is cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n On January 12, 2009, the first ever Bitcoin block was mined. For those of you wondering, mining a block means adding transaction records to data nodes, which yields Bitcoin in return.<\/p>\n Just three days later, the first Bitcoin transaction was performed: 10 bitcoins was sent to computer developer Hal Finney. It should be noted that, at this point, a single Bitcoin was only worth about $0,001.<\/p>\n The First Bitcoin Purchase<\/strong><\/p>\n The first Bitcoin-based purchase happened in 2010, when 10,000 bitcoins were used to buy a pizza. Bitcoin\u2019s surge in value couldn\u2019t have been predicted by anyone back then, so today this pizza sounds rather pricey, to say the least.<\/p>\n For the next seven years, Bitcoin\u2019s progress wasn\u2019t as notable. It experienced some turbulence due to security breaches and bad press, but showed overall growth, reaching a value of $1,000 in 2013.<\/p>\n