Today I wanted to go over a bit of a history lesson with bitcoin and what fuels its growth. Also a quick note I am not a supporter of Bitcoin Cash for reasons I will share another time.
The Birth
Bitcoin was launched in January 2009 with the first block the (genesis block) which consisted of the first 50 bitcoins. This was quickly followed by a few other miners who where actually working on projects just like bitcoin which we today would call alt coins.
This first block was mined by Satoshi Nakamoto and after mining a good amount they left bitcoin and pushed the development over to Gavin Andresen who became the lead developer at Bitcoin Foundation.
The First Transactions
One story comes to pass about two people on a forum that talked about bitcoin for 10,000 BTC to get two pizzas delivered by Papa Johns. Whoever that person was if they held on to it those where some expensive pizzas coming in at about 27 million dollars with today's value.
Growth Phase
The first few years of bitcoins existence not much happened. The digital currency was accepted on a few sites such as wikileaks as donations.
It wasn't till 2012 that we saw some action and for bitcoin to start being accepted for larger transactions. This was headed by Gavin Andresen and a few others via the Bitcoin Foundation which was launched to help standardize, protect and promote the open source blockchain. This is when Wordpress had started accepting bitcoins and a reported 1,000 other merchants.
In 2013 where the price was around $200-$400 per coin we started to see major adoption by more websites and merchants bit names such as Overstock and OkCupid. As this happened governments began to get involved saying that bitcoin was a currency or form of money.
This seemed to be the biggest change that made bitcoin into a realization that it actually had value and could start to be used for just about anything. 2014 saw more adoption of the coin as a currency from sites like Zynga, Newegg and Dell.
From this point on its just become mass acceptance and because of this the value of bitcoin continues to rise.
The Future
For me the future of bitcoin is in keeping the name and blockchain however improving it in a unified manner unlike what bitcoin cash has done which honestly I feel is causing more damage then good. If bitcoin cash is successful then what is stopping more splinters in the chain and even more random coins off the bitcoin blockchain. Its important for us as investors to protect our assets and splitting your money between competition is never a smart move.
I firmly believe bitcoin will make changes it has to otherwise it will die. These changes will increase the block size helping reduce transaction fees and paint a roadmap as to how future improvements can be adopted flawlessly. Instead of hearing about changes to bitcoin and panic selling it would instead fuel growth and value!
That should be in advertisements for Papa Johns
That would be pretty epic
i heard about 10,000 btc pizza back then, and i was like:
Papa Johns must have some damn good Pizza!
How are those 10,000 btc pizza guys doing right now? :)
Great information, Sean. I am also not a supporter of Bitcoin Cash, but a couple days ago posted about the benefits of the buzz it created... namely awareness. The ETH ETC split causes a lot of people concern in regards to the BTC BCC split, but its two different blockchains. Worth keeping an eye on as it develops though.
Yup but not all buzz is good buzz I just know if this is successful though there's going to be no stopping it from happening again and again to the point bitcoin is so fragmented no coin is the "standard" per say.
Good point as to the standard coin. The blockchain tech is continually improving so whether bitcoin remains the leader is yet to be seen. I'm still pretty optimistic about this particular buzz bolstering the value of bitcoin; mostly a hunch.
I really enjoyed reading through your post @bitcoinflood . I think that bitcoin will still keep getting stronger and stronger just because of the media attention it's receiving, the mass-adoption between consumers and merchants, and the infrastructure to back it up, ATMs, trading platforms, wallets, etc. which all the other coins currently lack. That's the fuel that drives bitcoin's value in my opinion, it's usefulness. Same can be said for Litecoin or ETH, and even EOS pretty soon, the power of the EOS blockchain is amazing. Dash as well, for it's anonymity and security, and also the masternodes that helps keep the volume down and make it a deflationary currency and a good store of value.
Great article mate thanks, cheers Mike
Thanks :)
Followed! I don't think bitcoin cash will be successul, only time will tell however. I think things will change when exchanges allow deposits
Thanks and I don't think it should succeed if it does I find it more damaging then actually being better
This post is very interesting in my opinion, you are very creative in choosing the object that you will make as your post, hopefully with this post you get a satisfactory or satisfying results and hope you are always successful in steemit and always can make an interesting and good post
Short and simple.
I like your posts, to the point and informative, thanks :-)
Thank you for checking it out
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Seeing this in a facebook group interested me indubitably. Love how it took me from facebook straight to #steemit post from user. #Cryptocurrency on the rise or no? #BitCoinMovement
Question is.. What did Papa Johns do with that 10,000 BTC :D
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STOPThese are very tranquil pictures! Good article though