It all started in 2008 when the global recession hit the earth, with the quantitative easing by the federal reserve, Global recession, the European sovereign debt crisis, a perfect storm for the birth of a new Crypto Currency : Bitcoin.
In the last 5 years since the peer-to-peer payment system and digital currency, introduced as open source software in 2009 by pseudonymous developer Satoshi Nakamoto, a lot of things happened. Most people say this year Bitcoin will have its biggest breakthrough within the mainstream. See the brief history of Bitcoin in this Infographic.
http://cryptovoice.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/the-definitive-history-of-bitcoin/
