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What Is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, a virtual asset customized to serve as a store of value that utilizes cryptography to manage its management and creation, instead of depending on primary authorities.
Bitcoin was created by a shadowy and now legendary figure Satoshi Nakamoto, who blended multiple persisting notions from the community of cryptography.
Since its inception, Bitcoin has gone through a plethora of development and has climbed higher mountains since then to become a major store of value both offline as well as online. Many commercial entities and businesses started to accept Bitcoin for payments in addition to conventional currencies.
The Genesis Of BTC
It all began with a domain titled bitcoin.org, which got registered on 18 August 2008. After a few weeks, during October’s end, a cryptography mailing list got a post, a link to a document scripted by the “Ghost” Satoshi Nakamoto, it said “Bitcoin: A Peer to Peer Electronic Cash System.”
The document contained a series of detailed mechanisms regarding how to utilize the Peer to Peer network to create what was called “a system of electronic transactions without relying on trust.”
On 3rd January 2009, BTC network finally emerged with Satoshi Nakamoto mining “Genesis Block” called Block 0, which contained a treasure of 50 BTC at that time.
The block contained the text “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.” The text was interpreted as genesis date’s timestamp as well as a ridiculing comment on perilousness of fractional reserve banking.
First-Ever BTC Retail Transaction
The Initial retail transaction that involved tangible goods was done on 22 May 2010, where 10,000 Bitcoins were transferred in exchange for a couple of Pizzas received from a domestic pizza restaurant based in Florida, tagging the day as BTC Pizza Day for cryptocurrency fans.
This incident can be said as the official entry of BTC among the general public.
The Commencement of Bitcoin Acceptance
Based on the open-source of BTC, other crypto assets began to surface.
A not for profit organization, Electronic Frontier Foundation, commenced accepting Bitcoin in January 2011, then ceased to accept them in June 2011 due to persisting concerns regarding deficiency of legitimate precedent about latest currency mechanisms.
The organization reversed its decision in May 2013 and again started to accept BTC.
Following the acceptance of BTC by EFF, other entities like WikiLeaks and more also commenced to accept BTC as a donation.
Bitcoin Goes To Television
During January 2012, BTC was the prime subject in “The Good Wife,” an episode, a CBS legitimate drama, where it was featured in a fictionalized trial. The episode was titled “Bitcoin for Dummies.”
Jim Cramer, Mad Money’s host on CNBC, played himself during the courtroom scene, testifying that he does not have faith in BTC being a true currency, stating that there is no central bank for its regulations and its virtual operations are entirely Peer to Peer.
It’s Time For Apps And Casinos To Accept Bitcoin Now
Bitcoin bagged considerable attention when applications like Foodler and OkCupid commenced accepting payments in BTC.
During July 2013, a project emerged associating BTC with M-Pesa, a well-liked mobile payments system, in an experiment customized to encourage innovative transactions in Africa.
During 2014, Zynga, a gaming developer, commenced testing BTC for acquiring in-game items in 7 of its developed games. In the similar month, Golden Gate Hotel and Casino and The D Las Vegas Casino Hotel properties in downtown Las Vegas declared that they will commence accepting BTC too.
BTC Functioning Now Recognized As Same As Real Money
During March 2016, the Japanese Cabinet identified Bitcoin as having its functionality the same as real money. Biggest South African digital marketplace, Bidorbuy, released BTC payments for both sellers and purchasers.
During 2016, experts issued a paper displaying that by November 2013, BTC commerce was no longer fueled by “sin” operations, but rather than by legal enterprises.
During August 2016, Bitfinex, a prime BTC exchange, was attacked by hackers where almost 120,000 BTC (around $60m at that moment) were snatched.
During November 2016, Swiss Railway controller SBB, updated all their automated ticket machines for enabling BTC purchase from them utilizing scanners on ticket machines for scanning BTC addresses on mobile applications.
Also Read: Will Ethereum’s price hit $10,000 by 2022?
BTC Is About To See A Thrust In Its Adoption
The number of businesses adopting Bitcoin picked up the threads, which boosted its acceptance. During January 2017, as per a report by NHK, a Japanese broadcasting organization, bitcoin acceptance in the number of digital stores in Japan has escalated by 4.6X.
Stephen Pair, Bitpay CEO, announced that the organization’s rate of transactions increased by 300% from Jan 2016 to Feb 2017, and elaborated that BTC utility is escalating B2B supply chain transactions.
BTC attained more lawfulness among authorities and legacy monetary organizations. For instance, Japan passed a bill for adopting BTC, a legitimate transaction system, and Russia released a statement regarding legalization of utilizing digital assets like BTC.
The Birth Of Bitcoin Hard Fork
Until July 2017, users of Bitcoin has managed a common cluster of rules for cryptocurrency. In August 2017, BTC split into a couple of derivative virtual currencies, the Bitcoin Chain and Bitcoin Cash.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) had the block size limit of 8 megabytes and Bitcoin Chain with block size limit of 1 Megabyte.
BTC Finally Became a Legal Tender In A Nation
On 1st June 2021, Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s president, declared his strategies to accept BTC as a legal tender, this would make it the initial nation to do so.
On June 8th 2021, at the president’s initiative, El Salvador Legislative Assembly’s pro-government deputies chose a law — The BTC Law or Ley BTC— to render BTC as a legal tender in the nation along with the USD.
Bitcoin Prices Throughout The Time
During 2009-10 Bitcoin basically had a store value of 0 with fans transferring BTC for just hobby purposes. It finally touched $1 after taking parity with USD.
After a couple of years, it reached its first all-time high of $1,242 on 29 November 2013, which remained till 17 December 2013, reaching $19,783.06, which again fell to $3,300.
From this moment, it was about to see a never seen before spike in its history. Within the span of 3 years, it climbed to the hill’s peak, where it traded at $66,974.77.
Bitcoin Price Live Data
As of 25 Feb 2022, BTC was trading at a market value of $38,343.91, bullish by 8.2% in the previous 24 hours. The crowned currency Bitcoin still holds the position on the throne, dominating the entire Crypto market by 42.5%.
Andrew is a blockchain developer who developed his interest in cryptocurrencies while pursuing his post-graduation major in blockchain development. He is a keen observer of details and shares his passion for writing, along with coding. His backend knowledge about blockchain helps him give a unique perspective to his writing skills, and a reliable craft at explaining the concepts such as blockchain programming, languages and token minting. He also frequently shares technical details and performance indicators of ICOs and IDOs.
