There are a lot of shocking headlines about cryptocurrency, especially in recent years.
After reading a few of them, it’s natural to get interested in participating in the market.
Even low-priced coins are as coveted as high-priced ones because of their growth potential. From Bitcoin to Ethereum, there are plenty of cryptocurrencies that are gaining traction.
But where did cryptocurrency come from? How did it get started and how did it get so popular?
It’s great to understand our own history, and cryptocurrency is becoming a big part of it.
So keep reading to understand the history of cryptocurrency’s invention. We’ll also let you know how the crypto market is shaping up this year.
Table of Contents
What is Cryptocurrency?
A cryptocurrency, AKA crypto, is a digital currency. Users can exchange it for goods and services.
But most people’s interest is in trading them when their value is high. After all, they work essentially like stocks, a single crypto coin being subject to constant price changes.
Many companies have released their own cryptocurrency. They also use blockchains that records and secures transactions. Since they’re unmonitored and virtually unhackable, cryptocurrency exchanges tend to be very secure.
The Origins Story
Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency ever invented. So most people agree that cryptocurrency was introduced when Bitcoin was in 2009.
The coin was invented by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. Their real identity (or identities) isn’t publicly known or verified, despite several high-profile journalistic investigations.
Want a more thorough introduction? Then check out this intricate telling of crypto’s history by ByteFederal, dating back more than a century before Bitcoin was invented!
The Journey
For years, the coin didn’t find much approval in the mainstream public’s eye. Despite other cryptocurrencies debuting in the early 2010s, their legitimacy was constantly rejected by banks, organizations, and companies.
A few years later, cryptocurrencies would soon be accepted as payment in several entities, including the University of Nicosia and Overstock.com. But this popularity got a lot of pushback from an overwhelming population of naysayers. Needless to say, this controversy did not stop crypto from getting increasingly popular.
So popular, in fact, that bigger companies started to accept bitcoin as payment after a few years. Entities like Microsoft and Dell accepted the legitimacy of cryptocurrency, and in turn, legitimized crypto even further for the public.
Since then, cryptocurrency has gotten big. Big enough for its establishment to be recognized by several national governments, who in turn have placed regulations on cryptocurrency trading.
Cryptocurrency in 2021
There have been several years where cryptocurrency’s popularity skyrocketed. This has caused coin prices to surge at astronomical rates, which has only fed the contemporary frenzy for crypto.
But at the beginning of 2020, many cryptocurrencies suffered. The pandemic provoked an economic crisis that stunted many coins’ growth. Many coins even dropped lower than they started 2020 with.
Yet crypto still saw a huge boom in interest. Bitcoin’s price raised to unforeseen numbers, and now many people are trying to find the “next big coin” to invest in.
Cryptocurrency — Then and Now
Crypto is getting big, to say the least. There’s no denying that it’s making a real impact on our financial markets. So if you’re interested in delving into crypto, it’ll give you an advantage in understanding the history of cryptocurrency.
This post should help you understand the origins story and development of cryptocurrency. If it has, check out the rest of our blog! We’ve got plenty of other information for tech/finance enthusiasts just like you.
