The last decade of blockchain: Looking back at 2010 to 2020

Source | ConsenSys

Edit | Summer

On January 3, 2009, against the backdrop of the global financial crisis exacerbating the global economic inequality gap, a mysterious person named Satoshi Nakamoto launched a type of operation that he called "Proof-of-Work chain "(Bitcoin) virtual currency on the proof-of-work chain.

• Learning to Power: Hainan's Blockchain Development Attracts Global Attention
• 38,000 new addresses added in one day, DeFi and Istanbul upgraded to inject new blood into Ethereum
• Xiao Lei: Blockchain is the next Internet + dollar super system, and the only US opponent is China

In Bitcoin's "Genesis Block", Satoshi Nakamoto permanently embedded a short line of text in the block data, which marked the source of inspiration behind this new technology: "The Times 03 / Jan / 2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks. " (On January 3, 2009, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was on the verge of implementing the second round of emergency bank assistance.)

This is a battle cry calling for a better way. In the next decade, cryptocurrencies and digital assets have experienced a roller coaster-like ups and downs.At the same time, based on the concept of decentralization and democratization of value acquisition, the economy and human systems have also undergone a comprehensive transformation. Early stages.

With the development of blockchain technology and people's continuous understanding of its potential, in the more than ten years since the birth of Bitcoin, incredible highs and corresponding lows have appeared. With the end of this decade, it is a good time to review the development of blockchain in this decade. This technology has evolved from a digital currency worth only a few pennies to an emerging pillar of the global economic system, and it is just beginning.

Before we start, let's understand the background: with the end of 2009, the development of blockchain was limited at that time. In fact, the first transactions to take place on the Bitcoin network were in December 2009. The BitcoinTalk forum is an early breeding ground for blockchain developers. It was launched in November 2009. At that time, the blockchain ecosystem was limited to a handful of technicians and developers …

year 2010

February — Bitcoin Market, the first cryptocurrency exchange in history, is established. The first transaction happened a month later.

April — The first public Bitcoin transaction: 1,000 BTC at $ 0.03 / 1BTC for $ 30.

May — The first real-world Bitcoin transaction was conducted by Laszlo Hanyecz, who spent 10,000 BTC on two Papa John pizzas (about $ 25).

June — Bitcoin developer Gavin Andreson establishes a website called Bitcoin Faucet, which provides 5 BTC to the public for free.

July — The word "Blockchain" first appeared on the BitcoinTalk forum. Before that, it was called "Proof-of-Work chain".

July — Bitcoin exchange Magic The Gathering Online eXchange (aka Mt. Gox) is established.

August — Bitcoin protocol vulnerabilities lead to an urgent hard fork.

December — Satoshi Nakamoto stopped communicating with the world.

year 2011

January — A quarter of Bitcoin has been mined, with a total of 21 million Bitcoins.

February — Bitcoin parity with the US dollar for the first time.

April — Bitcoin parity with Euro and British Pound.

June — Wikileaks begins accepting Bitcoin donations.

July — Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox is attacked, trading is suspended, and the price of Bitcoin drops sharply.

August — First Bitcoin Improvement Proposal: BIP Purpose and Guidelines.

October — Litecoin launch.

December — Bitcoin is the main plot element of the episode "The Good Wife" watched by 9.45 million viewers.

2012

May — The first issue of Bitcoin Magazine, launched by Mihai Alisie and Vitalik Buterin.

July — The Estonian government begins to include blockchain in the field of digital identity.

September — Bitcoin Foundation is established.

September — Coinbase raised more than $ 600,000.

October — BitPay reports that more than 1,000 merchants accept Bitcoin payments under its payment processing service.

November — Bitcoin welcomes its first block reward halved to 25 BTC / block.

year 2013

February — Reddit begins accepting Bitcoin as a payment method for its gold membership system.

March — The Cypriot government imposed a bailout on bank accounts holding more than 100,000 euros, causing a large number of depositors to flee to Bitcoin, which caused the price of Bitcoin to soar.

May — Bitcoin has a total value of more than $ 1 billion, with 11 million bitcoins in circulation.

May — The first rebound and crash in the cryptocurrency market. The price went from $ 13 to $ 220 and then dropped to $ 70.

June — The first major cryptocurrency theft. 25,000 BTC was stolen from the Bitcoin Forum founder.

July — Mastercoin becomes the first project to launch an ICO (Initial Coin Offering).

August — The U.S. federal court issues a view that Bitcoin is a currency or form of currency.

October — The FBI shuts down the black market Silk Road, confiscating approximately 26,000 BTC.

October — First Bitcoin ATM machine begins operation at Waves Coffee Shop in Vancouver.

November — Vitalik Buterin released an Ethereum white paper: "A Next-Generation Smart Contract and Decentralized Application Platform" (Next Generation Smart Contract and Decentralized Application Platform).

November — Bitmain announces the launch of the S1 miner.

November — The People's Bank of China approved the use of bitcoin, and China's bitcoin transaction volume soared to the world's leading level.

November — Bitcoin price breaks through $ 1,000.

November — The U.S. Senate holds its first hearing on Bitcoin.

December — The Ethereum codebase welcomes its first commit.

December — Chinese authorities re-state Bitcoin, declaring that it is not a currency.

Year 2014

January — Vitalik Buterin unveiled Ethereum at the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami.

February — The British Tax and Customs Authority (HMRC) classifies Bitcoin as a private currency.

February — DDoS attacks on three major exchanges: Mt. Gox, Bitstamp, and BTC-e

February — Mt. Gox goes offline and files for bankruptcy protection. The whereabouts of more than 850,000 BTC are unknown.

March — The IRS provides guidance that virtual currencies will be considered property that meets U.S. tax purposes.

March — Credit card processor Stripe begins accepting Bitcoin.

March — Newsweek named Dorian Nakamoto the creator of Bitcoin. But he is not.

January — Gavin Wood releases the Ethereum Yellow Book: "Ethereum: A Secure Decentralised Generalised Transaction Ledger" (Ethereum: A secure decentralized general transaction ledger).

June — Ethereum Foundation is established in Zug, Switzerland.

June — U.S. Marshals auctions 30,000 Bitcoins confiscated from the Dark Web Silk Road. All of them were bought by venture capitalist Tim Draper.

July — Ethereum tokens begin pre-sale, raising a total of 31,529 BTC in 42 days, with a market value of approximately $ 18 million at the time.

July — The first stablecoin BitUSD is launched by BitShares.

September — TeraExchange launches the first Bitcoin OTC swap approved by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

October — Joe Lubin forms ConsenSys.

December — By the end of 2014, Paypal, Zynga, Overstock.com, Expedia, Newegg, Dell, Dish Network, and Microsoft all accepted Bitcoin payments.

2015 year

January — Coinbase launches the first US cryptocurrency exchange.

February — Stripe provides merchants with Bitcoin payment integration services.

April — NASDAQ launches blockchain test.

June — The New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) released the final version of the BitLicense virtual currency regulation.

July — Frontier, the first mainnet version of Ethereum, goes live.

August — Augur becomes the first token issued on the Ethereum network.

September — Nine financial institutions form the R3 alliance and increase to more than 40 members in six months.

October — Gemini Exchange launches, founded by Winklevoss twin brothers.

October — Bitcoin is featured on the cover of The Economist.

November — The first zero-knowledge proof ZK-Snarks is released.

November — ERC20 token standard is proposed.

December — The Linux Foundation establishes the Hyperledger project.

December — WIRED Magazine claims Craig Wright may be Satoshi Nakamoto.

December — Pieter Wuille releases "Segregated witness and its impact on scalability".

2016 year

January — Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja release "The Bitcoin Lightning Network: Scalable On-Chain Instant Payments"

January — Zcash is released.

February — Linux Foundation and 30 founding members announce HyperLedger project

March — Blockchain and cryptocurrencies play an important role in the Chinese government's five-year plan.

March — The second phase of the Ethereum mainnet launch of Homestead.

April — The DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) kicks off 28-day crowdfunding. A month later, it raised more than $ 150 million worth of ETH.

May — Shenzhen Alliance of China Financial Blockchain was established with 31 members.

June — The DAO is under attack, and 3.6 million ETH of the 11.5 million ETH raised were stolen by the attackers.

July — The DAO attack caused a hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, once to recover stolen funds. A few groups opposed to the hard fork continued to use the original Ethereum blockchain and renamed it Ethereum Classic.

July — Bitcoin ushered in a second block reward halving, each block being reduced to 12.5 BTC.

November — The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) launches the Bitcoin Price Index.

2017 year

January — Bitcoin price breaks through $ 1,000 for the first time in three years.

February — 30 founding members set up an enterprise Ethereum alliance. Six months later, more than 150 members joined.

March — The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rejected applications for multiple Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

April — Bitcoin is officially recognized as a currency by Japan.

June — EOS launches a year-long ICO, eventually raising $ 4 billion.

July — Ethereum wallet client Parity is attacked, exposing weaknesses in multi-signature wallets.

August — Bitcoin Cash is forked from the Bitcoin network.

September — China bans ICO activities.

September — $ 1 million locked in decentralized financial applications (dApps).

October — Bitcoin price tops $ 5,000 for the first time.

October — The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) launches Bitcoin futures.

October — Ethereum releases the Byzantium soft fork network upgrade as the first part of the Metropolis phase.

November — Bitcoin price breaks through $ 10,000 for the first time.

November — Segwit2X hard fork was cancelled after widespread concerns from the Bitcoin community.

November — Devcon3 in Cancun twice increased attendance to meet developer needs.

December — The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) launches Bitcoin futures.

December — Bitcoin price hits $ 20,000.

December — Lightning Network Protocol 1.0 is released.

December — Ethereum Dapp game Cryptokitties is popular, pushing Ethereum network congestion to the limit.

December — MakerDAO launches stable coin DAI, heralding the future of decentralized financial development.

December — Long Island Iced Tea Corp said it would change its name to Long Blockchain Corp. Its shares rose more than 200% after the market opened.

December — The median transaction fee for the Bitcoin network peaked at $ 34.

December — The Austrian government establishes the Research Institute for Cryptoeconomy.

December — 2017 witnessed 435 successful ICO financings, with a total funding of more than $ 5.6 billion.

2018 year

January — Switzerland begins accepting Bitcoin to pay taxes.

January — 80% of Bitcoin has been mined.

January — Ethereum price peaks, approaching $ 1,400.

January — The total market value of the cryptocurrency market exceeds $ 800 billion.

January — Facebook bans all crypto-related ads

March — Google bans all crypto-related ads.

March — Twitter bans all crypto-related ads.

April — The first four months of 2018 raised $ 6.3 billion in token sales, more than the same period in 2017.

April — EU government pledges $ 300 million to develop blockchain projects.

April — Over 1,500 cryptocurrencies with a market capitalization of $ 43 million.

June — The SEC states that ETH is not a security.

June — The Korean government invests millions of dollars in blockchain projects.

July — Over 100,000 ERC20 Token contracts were created.

August — NYSE parent company ICE creates Bakkt, a federally regulated digital asset exchange.

August — Monetary Authority of Singapore launches Ubin project to provide interbank settlement use cases for Ethereum.

October — Fidelity launches a cryptocurrency platform to institutional investors.

October — The 10th anniversary of the birth of Bitcoin.

November — Venture capital invested in blockchain technology exceeds $ 1 billion.

November — Bitcoin Cash hard forks into Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin SV.

December — 90% of banks in the United States and Europe report exploration of blockchain technology.

December — Kaspersky reports that 19% of the world's population purchased cryptocurrencies by 2019.

From December to 2018, over 20 billion USD was raised through token issuance.

2019

January — Coinstar machines begin selling cryptocurrencies at grocery stores across the United States.

January — Ethereum Constantinople hard fork upgrade release, this is the second part of the Metropolis phase.

April — Total Bitcoin transaction volume exceeds 400 million.

June — Ethereum's daily transaction volume exceeds 1 million transactions.

June — Facebook announces the Libra project.

July — The U.S. Senate holds a hearing on the theme “Review of the regulatory framework for digital currencies and blockchain”.

August — The number of Ethereum developers reaches 4 times that of other blockchain platforms.

September — Santander issues $ 20 million in bonds on Ethereum.

October — Block.One was fined $ 24 million by the SEC for raising $ 4 billion in EOS ICOs without regulation

October — More than 80 million different Ethereum addresses have been created.

November — More than 3,000 Dapps were created, of which 2,700 were built on Ethereum.

November — The amount of ETH locked in decentralized financial applications reaches a record high of 2.7 million ETH.

In 2020, we move on!

[The copyright of the article belongs to the original author, and its content and opinions do not represent the position of Unitimes, nor does it constitute any investment opinions or suggestions. Posting articles is only for disseminating more valuable information. For cooperation or authorized contact, please send an email to [email protected] or add WeChat unitimes2018]

We will continue to update Blocking; if you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us!