Do You Think Bitcoin Could Have Existed in the 90s?

[Capitalism Prevails]

With the infrastructure and hardware of the time?

[1714790868]

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[1714790868]

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[Mike Christ]

How many months would it take to download the entire blockchain on dial-up? 

[freedomno1]

It's better it didn't or the dot com bubble would be insanity of a new scale 

[herzmeister]

Conceptually, sure.

It would have grown slower, in tune with the growth of the surrounding infrastructure (internet).

The blockchain would soon have been hosted on servers and archival nodes. Just like Satoshi himself describes will happen with our Bitcoin in the future too.

[TECSHARE]

maybe... if it was part of AOHell.

[deepceleron]

My 1995 Win95 computer had 8mb ram, a 512mb hard drive, and a Pentium 75. So much of Bitcoin - the block chain, mining, verifying transaction signatures, indexing balances - is way beyond the computational power of common computers at the time. If you were to start Merkle tree and signature verification of the current blockchain on such a computer now, it is likely it would never catch up. It is possible that if launched with the birth of the popular internet, it may have had small and slow adoption that technology could keep up with - and 93% of the bitcoins would already be mined.

In addition, the cryptography in Bitcoin wasn't available; it would be based on then state of the art DSA with SHA-0, SHA-1, and/or MD5. However, the digital cash and proof of work research done by many all the way up to the time of Bitcoin's launch still never put the pieces together, and the software tools and libraries were not there; I can't imagine writing crypto and database libraries fit for the job from scratch in 16 bit Borland C++. You would have a better chance of making a working light bulb and generator for the Pharaoh than a practical working Bitcoin 18 years ago.

[Rassah]

I'll be curious to see what kind of "Steampunk Bitcoin" stuff people will come up with 50 years from now.

[TheGovernedSelf]

Definitely not. Were you around for dial-up?

Also, when broadband was new (with speeds as high as 250 kb/s!), it wasn't unusual for your entire ISP to have 5-20% downtime.

Mobile point of sale is also very important for bitcoin, as is QR codes. Both of these pieces of technology were nothing but a pipe dream in the 90s.

[EscrowBTC]

Bitcoins in the 90s ??

Imagine the speed of transactions

[Spendulus]

Bitcoins in the 90s ??

Imagine the speed of transactions

Although something like a bitcoin could have existed in the 1990s, the coin would not have been mined as is now. 

Presume instead a virtual currency backed by a stack of gold somewhere.

Then, could a public blockchain based on crypto exist?  Yep, and those computers could do the SHA 256.

Next, the transactions would be limited to those for which the system was effective.  Say international transactions.  The transaction fee would have been higher, too.  Maybe something like $25 would have been enough incentive for peer to peer ad hoc groups to maintain something like a block chain.

[tinus42]

Bitcoin is based on technologies that existed in the late '90s. Such as SHA (introduced in 1993), IRC, public-private key encryption (both dating from the 1970's), peer to peer networking (which Napster used) and hashcash by Adam Back (who is a member of this forum BTW). So it could have. If someone had the vision. Didn't happen until Satoshi came along.

[tinus42]

It's better it didn't or the dot com bubble would be insanity of a new scale 

As if that isn't being replicated on the Bitcoin securities exchanges right now. 

[freedomno1]

It's better it didn't or the dot com bubble would be insanity of a new scale  

As if that isn't being replicated on the Bitcoin securities exchanges right now.  

Whistles well GLBSE collapsed already so I considered the 1990-2000 period equivalent of bitcoin and the dot com bubble passed
(Not including random collapses in price now and then thats another topic)
Either that or someday a collapse 2.0 will kick in with legal wiping out all the exchanges due to giant tax liabilities lol
Second answer
BUTS ITS SO MUCH FUN XD

[BitcoinBarrel]

Bitcoins in the 90's:

[freedomno1]

Bitcoins in the 90's:

I forgot what those are called but nice one

[tinus42]

Pogs.

In the Netherlands they were known as flippo's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogs

[Rassah]

Bitcoins in the 90's:

Believe it or not, there are still some idiots out there that are comparing bitcoin to pogs and beanie babies to this day.