From the birth of Bitcoin to the many events in its long journey and the Musk effect, we examine 9 turning points in history that have influenced and defined the field of cryptocurrency.
1.Bitcoin: Peer-to-Peer Electronic System
In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto announced that Bitcoin was the one that set the cryptocurrency revolution in motion. We can say that it has created a revolution by publishing its white paper “Bitcoin: Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”. The first paragraph of the article read: “Commerce on the Internet has come to rely almost exclusively on financial institutions that serve as trusted third parties to process electronic payments. While the system works well enough for most transactions, it still suffers from the inherent weaknesses of the trust-based model.” Thus, a step was taken to become autonomous and anonymous, initiating decentralization, challenging traditional financial markets.
2.Genesis Block
On January 3, 2009, Nakamoto released the Genesis Block with the first 50 BTC reward subsidy, which by the way could never be spent. Nakamoto also left a message on the block: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor is on the verge of a second bailout package for banks”, presumably to prove that the block was created on or after the headline date and leave it as a comment on the matter. He noted the instability of traditional finance at the time and the insufficient level of trust of the centralized system.
3.The Most Expensive Pizza Ever
Florida programmer Laszlo Hanyecz raised an interesting topic on the forum site Bitcointalk.org. In this forum, where only those who knew Bitcoin at that time were known, Hanyecz opened a thread where he wanted to order 2 pizzas with 10,000 BTC. And the user with the nickname “Jercos”, whose real name is Jeremy Sturdivant, accepted Laszlo’s offer. He then paid $30 in BTC for Laszlove Papa John’s pizzas. Sounds like crazy right now, I guess. Thus, the Bitcoin pizza day celebrations extended from May 22 to the present day. Today’s pizza would be worth close to $484,000,000 at the time of writing.
4.1 BTC = 1 USD
February 9, 2011 is the day BTC reached parity with the US dollar. The relatively small Bitcoin community at the time held a “Parity Party” on the forums to celebrate this event. Just two years after Nakamoto published his crazy idea, BTC has reached the same level as the world’s largest reserve currency. After this date, the demand for Bitcoin began to accelerate even more. In particular, it attracted the attention of people who are interested in the technology (blockchain) of this business
5.Bitcoin XT
A hard fork usually occurs when changes are made to the blockchainto solve an issue with scalability or transaction fees. When there is disagreement among the community within the existing network, it can lead to the formation of another blockchain. The first hard fork took place in 2014. This led to the formation of Bitcoin XT. Other altcoins gave birth to Bitcoin Classic, Bitcoin Gold, and Bitcoin Cash. The latter is the most successful coin resulting from a split.
6.The Birth of Ethereum
Launched in 2015 by Vitalik Buterin and Joseph Lubin, the decentralized software platform enabled the creation and execution of smart contracts and distributed applications on the blockchain with Ether as the coin traded on the blockchain. After its launch, Ethereum quickly gained value and new strategies and steps for investing in the cryptocurrency market were formed. Of course, this has led to the development of the mining sector in terms of reorganizing and improving systems for miners. Today it has become the second largest cryptocurrency.
7.HODL symbol
It is a typo that has become a symbol of the revolution. HODL is a word used to hold crypto assets even in the most adverse markets. It means “never sell, keep it”. This all started in 2013 when an entrepreneur posted an opinion about Bitcoin and investments on a forum. He made a post in the form of “I am Hodling” to explain that the Bitcoins in his hand would be valued and therefore he would not sell them no matter what. The term Hodl appeared after this mistake.
Although the mistake consisted of writing the word hodl instead of the word hold, this concept was loved and found its place in the literature. From this point on, every investor who wants to explain that he will keep an investment in his hand has chosen to explain himself briefly by using this phrase.
8.Corporations Want
New players are also showing interest in joining the crypto space day by day. For example, JP Morgan, which in past years has been known for its anti-Bitcoin stance and even threatened to fire employees who invest in Bitcoin, has changed its stance towards digital assets by announcing plans to invest $20 million in a fundraising round for blockchain consortium Consensys. Similarly, Commerz Ventures, the investment arm of Germany’s Commerzbank, announced its investment in digital asset security startup Curv.
In the last 1 year, many surveys have been conducted regarding institutional investors. If some examples are given; Fidelity Digital Assets conducted a survey from November 2019 to March 2020 to better understand institutional interest and adoption of cryptocurrencies. The report reveals that nearly 80 percent of institutional players in Europe and the U.S. find digital assets attractive. Tom Jessop, CEO of Fidelity Digital Assets, says these results confirm a trend in the market towards a greater interest in digital assets and acceptance as a new investment-grade asset class.
9.The MUSK Effect
Elon Musk has confirmed that Bitcoin is the future of money. Elon Musk is investing in Bitcoin. He invests in Bitcoin with the HODL system in mind for the long term, but he does so without creating a different perception in the market by saying any price indicators. Whenever Musk has a public opinion about Bitcoin, he does not hesitate to share it, and the markets react to this situation. This can affect some investors well and some badly. Some say he used it to his advantage, while others think it’s a marketing exercise, whatever Musk’s next plan is.
The crypto market is growing and developing at a dizzying pace. No one can predict what the future will bring while various crazy things are happening in the market, but there seems to be a definite pattern emerging in the crypto space in the long run: stubborn and on an upward trajectory!
The 9 most obvious milestones in the cryptocurrency market are shaped as mentioned above.
