In recent years, Bitcoin has gained the attention of many mainstream users outside of the once hardcore Internet-savvy user base, making the news across platforms from television to social media. Since then, the original crypto-giant has come a long way from being valued just from mere few pennies to prices many had never thought even possible.
Bitcoin’s development paved the way for disruptive decentralized economic structures when Satoshi handed over the Bitcoin source code to the public so other developers could carry the torch and make governance proposals to upgrade, change, or modify the protocol in whatever way they see fit.
However, where the world’s most popular cryptocurrency once found itself confined to a limited number of tech-savvy individuals, it has since become mainstream as more people develop an interest in digital currency – all thanks to COVID-19.
The now infamous global virus did not stay within the realm of health, affecting the global economy in a big way. Everything has changed, with traditional financial systems amongst the hardest hit. Despite this, many have found opportunities throughout the uncertainty.
A Brief History of Bitcoin
After the financial crisis of 2008 and subsequent recession, many people had lost much of their faith in the traditional ways money was handled by governments, banks, and institutions. As a result, developers created a technology to administer a peer-to-peer digital currency free from control by a singular centralized entity – the Bitcoin protocol.
The first move in establishing Bitcoin as a cryptocurrency occurred in 2007 when Satoshi Nakamoto wrote the first iteration of the Bitcoin code. “Satoshi Nakamoto” is the alias used by the assumed pseudonymous individual or individuals who invented the Bitcoin protocol, wrote the white paper, produced and transacted with the first crypto ever mined for anonymous peer-to-peer digital transactions.
In 2008, Nakamoto published the white paper via an online Bitcoin forum, bitcoin.org. Satoshi explained how the Bitcoin protocol could operate using computer networks. The purpose of anonymous digital transactions was to eliminate third parties, putting an end to the need for people to rely on the centralized banking system of today.
The following year in 2009, the Bitcoin whitepaper was officially made available to the public and found its way across the internet. The whitepaper quickly circulated between colleagues, friends, and family members who may have had an interest in technology or possessed a financial foresight into the future of our modern economy.
Nakamoto continued to be involved in Bitcoin’s development until December 2010. Many people have claimed to be or were pretending to be Satoshi over the decade since.
The Exponential Rise of Bitcoin
Analyzing prior Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrency bull markets, we can see that buying the dip in February of 2020, for example, was a strategy that proved to be particularly efficient.
Before that, arguably the most impressive bull run in BTCs short history materialized in 2017. The primary cryptocurrency of investors saw its decisive ascension from below $4,000 during the summer before topping out at nearly $20,000 in December. The path to get there was by no means a smooth one, highlighting why implementing a buy the dip strategy once again created great opportunities for investors to hop on the BTC train.
Following this, it wouldn’t take long before the asset went through some massive turbulence: mid-November, it tanked from $8,000 to below $6,000. That turned out to be a rather apparent dip as it skyrocketed in price shortly after before the next substantial dive in early December from over $16,000 to $13,000.
At the time of writing, BTC is trading for $46,978.10 – a 469,780,900% increase from the day Bitcoin was only worth a penny. It is worth noting that there has never been a more profitable investment in the history of humanity – and as time passes, doubts about whether these exponentially outsized returns are sustainable or not have started to fall to the wayside.
Final Thoughts
It has been over a decade since the first cryptocurrency introduced itself to the financial market: Bitcoin. Developing into a revolutionary concept – imagined and ultimately brought to fruition over the years – a network not only robust but scalable, reliable, and safe for digital transactions.
The overall percentage of Americans holding the digital asset has tripled from 2018-2021, despite many investors claiming they viewed the crypto asset as a highly speculative play. On the flip side, however, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies act as life rafts from the sinking ship of the central banking fiat currency system.
The impending crypto-revolution is about to bring irreversible change to our global economy – this is not a matter of choice, and it is no longer a matter of acceptance. Instead, it is the way we deal with these changes and what we do with the technology made available to us as we head toward the future that will ultimately shape it, for better or for worse.
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