Visionaries laid groundwork. In 1983, David Chaum's eCash pioneered anonymous digital money via cryptography, but Digicash flopped by 1998.
Wei Dai's 1998 B-Money and Nick Szabo's Bit Gold sketched decentralized ledgers, coining "cryptocurrency."
These fueled privacy rebels dreaming beyond banks.Bitcoin Ignites (2008-2013)Satoshi Nakamoto's 2008 whitepaper dropped Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. Genesis block mined January 2009 amid financial crisis—50 BTC with a bailout headline embedded. $BTC
First exchange (New Liberty Standard) priced BTC at $0.0009 in 2009. Pizza Day 2010: 10,000 BBTW for two pies. By 2013, BTC hit $1,000; altcoins like Litecoin (2011), Ripple (2012), Ethereum (2013) forked in.
Boom, Bust, DeFi Era (2014-2020)Mt. Gox hack (2014) lost 850K BTC, crashing trust. ICO mania 2017 pumped ETH to $1,400, birthing thousands of tokens—then 95% wiped in "Crypto Winter." $ETH
Ethereum's smart contracts spawned DeFi (Uniswap 2018) and NFTs. Halving cycles (2012, 2016, 2020) fueled BTC rallies; 2020 COVID dip rebounded to $29K. Institutional Surge (2021-2025)2021 bull: BTC $69K peak, Tesla buys in, El Salvador adopts BTC as tender. NFTs explode (Bored Apes). 2022 bear: FTX collapse, Terra/Luna implosion tank prices 75%.
Rebound 2023-24: BTC ETFs approved, ETH Merge to Proof-of-Stake. Trump reelection 2024 sparks deregulation; BTC hits $118K by Feb 2026 amid altcoin frenzy. $BNB
Today & Tomorrow (2026+)$2.65T cap, BTC dominance 44%. Airdrops (Polymarket, Hyperliquid), L2s (Base, Solana), AI-DeFi trend. Challenges: regulation, hacks, scalability. Future? Mass adoption via wallets, RWAs, or CBDCs clashing with de centralization.
Crypto's not dead—it's battle-tested rebellion. From Satoshi's ghost to your portfolio, it rewires money. Stack sats wisely.