The Pre-Bitcoin Years
1982 - 1997
The ideal behind bitcoin can be traced back to David Chaum proposal of the "e-cash" concept in 1982 when he published a paper entitled '"Blind Signatures for untraceable payments'". He tried to practica
lise his idea of a blind signature system which would allow for an automated payment system where third parties can't see the information of payment, by creating " DigiCash" in Amsterdam, which later went bankrupt in the late 90's.
1998
This year brought about the sudden emergence of the cryptocurrency idea to create an online currency that was secured by encryption.
"B-Money" created by Wei Dai and "Bit-Gold" by Nick Szabo were the first cryptocurrency to be formulated but not fully developed, which made Bitcoin the first established cryptocurrency.
Bit-Gold and B-MONEY were formulated with reasons for a decentralised alternative currency that doesn't require a third party like central bank.
2008
After two decades that the predecessors had tried, came "Bitcoin.org" in August 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto whose real identity is unknown till date. Two months later he wrote the Bitcoin paper published as "Bitcoin: A peer to peer electronic cash system" which was posted to a mailing list discussion on cryptography.
The Bitcoin Years
2009
On January 9th the Bitcoin software was launched and make available to the general public for the first time. Genesis block, Bitcoin first block was also created for mining (the process of creating new Bitcoin), along side the Blockchain Technology for recording and verifying it's transactions.
2010
Because it was not traded upon, it had no monetary value to it till Laszlo Hanyecz sold 10,000BTC in May 2010 to a London man in exchange for two pizzas which total value was $25. A single act that placed monetary value to, as more merchants began adopting it as means of payment.
2011
Due to the monetary value which Bitcoin had, it's popularity increased and the idea of decentralised encrypted digital currency spread on, Bitcoin worth also increased to $1 in February 2011 for the first time and increased further to $30 by June.
Other cryptocurrencies began to emerge, among which are "LiteCoin", "NameCoin" and "AltCoin" which tried to improve on Bitcoin by adding features like anonymity, greater speed and some other advantages. Presently there are over 1,000 cryptocurrency in circulation with new ones still coming.
2013
Bitcoin price continued to increase and got to about $1,000 for the first time and crashed down from it's peak to around $300 the decline made those who newly invested around this period to suffer losses.
2014
Bitcoin has grown to be loved, appreciated and attractive to criminals. Has the decline continued world largest Bitcoin exchange Mt. Got went bankrupt and offline in January 2014 causing the owners of about 850,000BTC to loss their digital asset.
2017
This year was the highest and busiest year for Bitcoin as it passed it's $1,000 mark to $3,000 by June. The number of miners also increased, higher fees and more time spent on processing transactions led to the creation of Bitcoin Cash(BCH) in August 2017, which is now the fifth largest cryptocurrency by market cap.
Bitcoin stilled continues to raise despite Bitcoin Cash (BCH) lunch, topping up to $6,000 by October, $10,000 by November and hit it's peak of $19,783 by December.
2018
The year has been a rough year for its users as it kept declining again and has dropped by 67% and the present worth is around $6,542.78
As the year goes by, we are optimistic that 2019 would be a wonderful year for Bitcoin investors.
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