(Photo : Karolina Grabowska)

Go online today and it's hard to scroll through a few different news stories without coming across the term crypto. So, how did we get here? Well, it all started with Bitcoin, which is likely the most popular and well-known form of cryptocurrency. Here, we are going to discuss in more detail the history of Bitcoin and how it contributed towards making cryptocurrency what it is today. 

Where It Began 

These days, Bitcoin is one of the most popular forms of cryptocurrency. People are constantly purchasing Bitcoin and heading over to conversion websites, such as OKX, to stay up to date with the current value of crypto and decide whether or not they should be investing. Of course, it wasn't always like this. 

Bitcoin was created over a decade ago. There was a single person or group of programmers who worked under the name Satoshi Nakamoto who created it. They published the Bitcoin whitepaper back in 2008 and then the first ever Bitcoin was officially developed in 2009. In this whitepaper, the author(s) spoke about blockchain technology, describing it as the backbone of the entire cryptocurrency market. 

There are a lot of people who have come forward over the past few years claiming to be the actual Satoshi Nakamoto but the fact remains that none of them has been able to provide enough evidence that backs up their claims. 

The Price History of Bitcoin 

It was back in 2010 that Bitcoin was first available for people to buy, sell, and trade. It took a year for the price of Bitcoin to surpass one dollar. It was in this same year that Bitcoin encountered its first-ever piece of competition, as Litecoin was launched in October. It would then be another 4 years until the now very popular cryptocurrency Ethereum was created. 

Throughout this period, the price of Bitcoin continued to rise, and with it, so too did visibility and overall popularity. The prices reached $1000 in 2013 and then continued climbing, hitting $10,000 in November 2017 and then doubling in December 2017. There were a few driving forces behind this increased popularity, but one of these was the announcement by CME that they were going to be launching futures contracts. Another factor was that CEOs of note were publicly backing Bitcoin. 

The Rise of Other Cryptos 

Because the popularity and profitability of Bitcoin were clear, it meant that a lot of other web developers decided to try to start their own form of crypto as well. This has led to the current market that we find ourselves in today which is flooded with different variations of cryptocurrency. There are so many that proper research is needed by people who are interested in starting their very own cryptocurrency business or who would like to begin trading in crypto. Thanks to the fact that a lot of modern businesses are now willing to accept Bitcoin as an official form of payment, it seems like this popularity isn't going to die down anytime soon.