A decade of blockchain

On October 31, 2008, a social experiment began, and Satoshi Nakamoto appeared with Bitcoin and blockchain.

Over the past decade, as Bitcoin and blockchain have developed through different stages, geeks, miners, speculators, and novices have continued to pour in, leaving behind keywords such as getting rich quick, myth, scam, belief, and revolution.

Ten years later, Bitcoin and blockchain may no longer be Satoshi Nakamoto’s original intention. They are no longer just toys for a few geeks, but are about to set off a technological revolution.

Looking back at the major events of this technological wave is not only for commemoration, but also for learning from history and moving forward.

2008-2009

Keywords: Satoshi Nakamoto, Genesis

Major events: On October 31, 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto released the Bitcoin white paper, "A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System," in his cryptography email group, and Bitcoin was born.

On January 3, 2009, the Bitcoin Genesis Block was mined by Satoshi Nakamoto, who left a note in the block: "January 3, 2009. British Chancellor of the Exchequer on the brink of a second bank rescue." This was the headline of the Times that day.

On January 12, 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto transferred 10 bitcoins to Hal Finney, an early developer of Bitcoin. This was the first Bitcoin transfer.

Short comment: Satoshi Nakamoto hopes to create a new financial and monetary system through the Bitcoin network. This is his dissatisfaction with the current financial system that has repeatedly suffered from financial crises, and his vision for a new system in the future.

However, such a new technology with infinite imagination has far exceeded its original intention and has also sparked enough imagination in other fields.

2010

Key: Pizza, vulnerabilities, trading, geek toys

Big event: On May 22, 2010, Bitcoin enthusiast "Laszlo Hanyecz" used 10,000 bitcoins to buy a pizza coupon worth $25.

On July 18, 2010, Jed McCaleb, the founder of the P2P transmission network "eDonkey", launched the world's first online Bitcoin exchange "Mt. Gox", which once handled more than 70% of the world's Bitcoin transactions.

On August 15, 2010, a vulnerability in the Bitcoin protocol was attacked, and hackers generated 184.4 billion Bitcoins out of thin air. The next day, the Bitcoin community urgently fixed the vulnerability.

In 2010, two important figures who would influence the development of blockchain in the future entered the world of Bitcoin. ByteMaster (BM) and Vitalik Buterin (V God) began to think about the Bitcoin network.

Short comment : This was the first public transaction between Bitcoin and physical objects, and this day became the famous "Bitcoin Pizza Day" in Bitcoin history. The vision of Bitcoin as a financial system has more practical significance.

The Bitcoin vulnerability also prompted more technology geeks to come up with ideas for improving it. This year, Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared from the Internet, and more explorers were eager to try.

2011-2012

Keywords: Mentougou, American TV series, Silk Road, supervision

Big event: On June 19, 2011, Mt.Gox was attacked by hackers. The hackers pushed the price of Bitcoin to $0.01 in a short period of time, causing Mt.Gox and other exchanges to be forced to temporarily shut down.

In June 2011, a large number of illegal Bitcoin transactions began to take place on the dark web Silk Road. Bitcoin was used as the "official currency" to trade drugs, guns, etc. Bitcoin began to become associated with underground black market transactions.

On June 9, 2011, China’s first Bitcoin trading website, “Bitcoin China”, was launched.

On December 19, 2011, the American TV series "The Good Wife" announced that it would broadcast a new episode about Bitcoin, which attracted much attention. It is said that Xu Mingxing, the founder of the later Bitcoin trading platform OKCoin, was influenced by this plot.

In June 2012, Butterfly Labs in the United States announced the ASIC mining machine and announced that the new product would be launched in September 2012, only half a year away from the first halving of Bitcoin's production capacity.

In July 2012, Friedcat announced on a forum that it could build an ASIC mining machine. Wu Jihan invested 100,000 yuan of his personal assets and helped Friedcat raise money, and finally successfully raised 1 million yuan in funds.

On November 28, 2012, Bitcoin output experienced its first “halving”, with the number of bitcoins generated per block reduced from 50 to 25.

Short comment: Bitcoin is associated with illegal transactions on the dark web due to its characteristics. This is a major obstacle to the legitimacy of Bitcoin and also a shortcoming that has been criticized.

Bitcoin is no longer just a toy for geeks. More and more people are attracted by its "financial attributes". Bitcoin is in the early stages of large-scale industrialization.

2013

Keywords: mining machine, exchange, Bitmain

Big event: In early 2013, Zhang Nanqian (Pumpkin Zhang) was the first to develop an ASIC mining machine and named it "Avalon", but it was not shipped until September, with a total of 1,500 units in the first three batches.

In June 2013, the USB mining machine of Kaomao was finally launched and maintained control over 20% of the computing power of the entire network.

On September 1, 2013, Li Lin's Bitcoin trading platform Huobi.com was launched. In 2013, Xu Mingxing's Bitcoin trading platform OKCoin was launched.

On October 29, 2013, Robocoin and Bitcoiniacs launched the world's first Bitcoin ATM in Vancouver.

On December 5, 2013, the People's Bank of China and five other ministries issued a "Notice on Preventing Bitcoin Risks", declaring Bitcoin a non-currency and prohibiting all financial institutions from participating in Bitcoin business.

At the end of 2013, Wu Jihan used the tens of millions of dollars he earned from investing in BBQCat and, in cooperation with Zhan Ketuan, developed the Ant S1 mining machine, and the mining machine manufacturer Bitmain began to enter the historical stage.

Short review: This is the fourth year since the birth of Bitcoin. At this time, Bitcoin and blockchain have been widely spread. During this period, many "celebrities" in the blockchain world have noticed its existence.

The advent of ASIC Bitcoin mining machines also gave birth to the emergence of new giants in this market. Bitcoin began to move towards the stage of large-scale commercialization.

2014—2016

Keywords: ETH, Baked Cat, smart contract, 2.0

Big event: On February 24, 2014, Mt.Gox said that more than 850,000 bitcoins had been stolen in the past few years and announced the closure of the exchange, causing huge fluctuations in the price of bitcoin.

On July 24, 2014, the Ethereum project he developed started pre-sale, raising a total of 31,529 bitcoins, which was worth about $18 million at the time. He was only 19 years old at the time, and thus got the name Vitalik Buterin.

In August 2014, due to problems with the development of mining machines and a bad market situation, FriedCat appeared in public for the first time and had to promote his products. However, this became his last appearance, and he completely lost contact afterwards.

On January 26, 2015, the Bitcoin trading platform Coinbase went online.

In May 2015, Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the dark web Silk Road, was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole on seven counts including money laundering, hacking, and drug trafficking.

Around June 15, 2016, The DAO, a smart contract crowdfunding project on Ethereum, was hacked, and Ethereum faced a major crisis.

On July 20, 2016, Ethereum forked into two chains, ETC and ETH, recovering most of The DAO’s losses.

On July 9, 2016, Bitcoin experienced its second “halving”, with the number of bitcoins mined per block reduced from 25 to 12.5.

On October 31, 2015, Bitcoin appeared on the cover of The Economist magazine.

Short review: After the birth of Ethereum, it has indeed injected fresh blood into the blockchain industry and allowed technology enthusiasts to see more possible applications of blockchain. In the following days, smart contracts have caused a new wave of enthusiasm in the blockchain industry.

2017

Keywords: Token fundraising, EOS, 3.0

Big event: In April 2017, ByteMaster (BM) founded BlockOne and announced the new project EOS.

On July 4, 2017, the Binance exchange founded by Zhao Changpeng went online. Due to its series of marketing activities and the choice of going abroad after 1994, it quickly grew into the world's largest digital currency trading platform.

On September 4, 2017, seven national ministries jointly issued an announcement prohibiting private placement of tokens within the country.

2017 was undoubtedly the year of concentrated token fundraising. In that year, there were numerous projects using Ethereum smart contracts to issue tokens. However, most of them became junk projects that were just for "raising money".

Around the Spring Festival in 2017, the 3:00 AM sleepless blockchain community was very popular, and believers or observers of blockchain expressed their opinions in the WeChat group. This was also one of the important factors that led to the unusual popularity of blockchain in China in 2018.

Short review: This year, countless token fundraisings appeared, but after the craze subsided, most of them were eliminated. After a round of cleaning, more opportunities were given to high-quality entrepreneurs. The craze is short-lived, and in the next quiet period, only hard-working and talented people will have the last laugh.

BM's EOS was once regarded as the 3.0 of blockchain, but blockchain practitioners still need to take a long-term view. The development of blockchain may require more than a decade and more than one 3.0.

2018

Keywords: transaction mining, exploration, application, listing

Big event : At the end of May 2018, FCoin was launched, attracting huge traffic due to its trading mining dividend model. Half a month after its launch, its daily trading volume exceeded the sum of Binance, OKEx, and Huobi. But the good times did not last long, and the trading mining model quickly failed.

In September 2018, Bitmain, the world's largest mining machine manufacturer, submitted its prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The other two top three mining machine companies, Canaan Creative and Ebang International, also submitted their prospectuses to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

On October 10, 2018, the "2018 Hurun Rich List" was released, with a total of 14 industry tycoons including Zhan Ketuan, Wu Jihan, Zhao Changpeng, Xu Mingxing, and Li Xiaolai on the list.

In October 2018, the other party reported that Coinbase was about to go public (IPO) and was expected to raise US$500 million.

In 2018, all countries actively regulated token fundraising, and regulatory policies were gradually improved. Seeking legal and compliant tokens has become an industry consensus, fraudulent token fundraising is gradually decreasing, and the public's awareness of prevention is further enhanced.

In 2018, discussions about blockchain began to increase. New concepts such as ticket reform, currency-free blockchain, chain reform, token economy, and empowering the real economy were proposed, and blockchain began to slowly separate from Bitcoin.

In 2018, many industries began to try and experiment with blockchain, including electronic invoices, copyright, cargo traceability, judicial evidence storage and many other examples.

2018 marks the tenth anniversary of the birth of Bitcoin and blockchain, an important milestone.

Short review: Bitcoin and blockchain have gone through a decade together. As the first product of the blockchain world, Bitcoin has been promoted to the altar. In the future, blockchain will have greater imagination in more fields, and Bitcoin may become a blockchain souvenir endowed with value.

The gods that were worshipped in the wild times of blockchain will gradually lose their mystery and return to being mortals.