Brief History of Bitcoin

Who Created Bitcoin?

Nobody knows! Bitcoin’s creator used the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, but we don’t know anything about their identity. Satoshi could be one person or a group of developers anywhere in the world. The name is of Japanese origin, but Satoshi’s mastery of English has led many to believe that he/she/they originate from an English-speaking country. Satoshi published the Bitcoin white paper as well as the software. However, the mysterious creator disappeared in 2010.

Did Satoshi Invent Blockchain Technology?

In reality, Bitcoin is a combination of technology that have been there for a long time, such as digital currency. In fact, the idea of a "chain of blocks" predates Bitcoin. A system for timestamping documents proposed by Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta can be traced back to the early 1990s. It depended on cryptographic techniques to encrypt data and prevent it from being tampered with, just like the blockchains of today.

Satoshi's white paper does not use the term "blockchain" once.

Digital Cash Before Bitcoin

Bitcoin wasn’t the first attempt at digital cash, but it is certainly the most successful. Previous schemes paved the way for Satoshi’s invention:

DigiCash

Cryptographer and computer scientist David Chaum invented DigiCash in the late 1980s. Based on Chaum's work, it was introduced as an online transaction privacy solution.

However, the DigiCash model was an interesting experiment despite the fact that it was centralized. Chaum feels the failure of the company was caused by the fact that it launched before e-commerce had really taken off.

B-money

Computer scientist Wei Dai first proposed the concept of B-money in a paper released in the 1990s. In the Bitcoin white paper, it was mentioned, and it's clear why.

Users would sign transactions in a distributed database using a Proof of Work technique similar to that employed in Bitcoin mining. Staking is a common practice in other cryptocurrencies, and a second version of b-money proposed an alternative.

B-money, on the other hand, never really took off since it never got out of the draft stage. Dai's concepts definitely influence Bitcoin, which is a digital currency.

Bit Gold

So many similarities between Bit Gold and Bitcoin have been found that many people believe computer scientist Nick Szabo is the real Satoshi Nakamoto. As a Proof of Work system, Bit Gold has a ledger in which strings of data are recorded.

Nothing further was ever done with it, just like with b-money. Since Bitcoin is so closely related, Bit Gold has been labeled as a "precursor to Bitcoin."