Happy birthday, Bitcoin!

Satoshi Nakamoto, still anonymous after all these years, posted the document outlining what he called “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”, 9 years ago. Since then, a first blockchain database was created, then Bitcoin appeared. Back then, it was a thing only coders and geeks talked about, and much more people considered it to be a fraud or a Ponzi scheme. Little did they know that this technology will only increase in difficulty and price.

After time, it became apparent that computer CPUs are not as efficient for mining as GPUs - video chips used for 3D rendering (e.g. in computer games). More GPUs combined meant more mining efficiency, and the rush for mining has created vast mining farms.

Blockchain technology, the base of Bitcoin, has proved its value to various financial institutions after the first experiments it became clear that this structure greatly improves the speed of transactions and minimizes fraud risks if applied correctly. Since 2008, blockchain has become one of the most attractive trends of our time.

Other cryptocurrencies have been created, and some of them have useful features Bitcoin still does not have (for example, Monero with its nice anonymization tools). But we should not forget that if it wasn’t for Bitcoin and its creator(s), the fintech sphere would not be the same.