Bitcoin Prehistory

[funkenstein]

Thanks OP, great stuff. 

[1715244769]

1715244769

[MrFreeRoMan]

Add to chronology:

2000: Hash tree  https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/64398/files/idealhashtrees.pdf Phil Bagwell

1992–1993: Proof-of-work for spam

1999–present: P2P networks

1999–present: Byzantine fault tolerance

[Last of the V8s]

https://blog.bitmex.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/patent.pdf
schnorr sigs patent. maybe there's a better link out there

[eternalgloom]

Absolutely fantastic work, I'll definitely share this whenever someone asks me about the history of Bitcoin and what went ahead of its creation.
That happens more than you would expect and there's no way I'd be able to give such a complete answer as shown here in this chart/thread.

One of the few threads on here that will make it into my bookmarks folder.

[MrFreeRoMan]

There is something else:

Satoshi Nakamoto wrote (Satoshi Nakamoto Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:33:04 -0800)
I believe I've worked through all those little details over the
last year and a half while coding it, and there were a lot of them.
The functional details are not covered in the paper, but the
sourcecode is coming soon.  I sent you the main files.
(available by request at the moment, full release soon)

This means that he began working on Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper in the summer of 2006.

[finaleshot2016]

It's the first time that I see the history of bitcoin and it's very satisfying because another knowledge has been added to my learnings. This is another start up for those who will try to learn bitcoin with me. I would like to include this on my presentation if someone needs my basic learnings.

[Twinkledoe]

It's the first time that I see the history of bitcoin and it's very satisfying because another knowledge has been added to my learnings. This is another start up for those who will try to learn bitcoin with me. I would like to include this on my presentation if someone needs my basic learnings.

The  post is really an informative one if you want to know the beginnings of bitcoin. A very good reference for someone who wants to understand more about bitcoin's existence. I think this post should be pinned also for everyone's consumption.

[Yakamoto]

That graph on the dollar is shocking. But do you know what the really amazing thing is? The rest of the world's currencies are doing even worse than the dollar.

At least the dollar started to strengthen in 2016, as a result of interest rates normalising. Everyone else's currency weakened further as a result of zero interest rates and QE. The ECB's base rates are 0.0% and the rate they charge banks for depositing excess reserves at the ECB is -0.4%. And yet banks still deposit excess reserves with the ECB despite losing money. The mind boggles as to what they're thinking.

The USD is actually doing really well considering the economic conditions that are being experienced almost everywhere. The US, despite all the whining that occurs with Trump, has a booming economy in a time where every other country is in the middle of a slump. It's basically a recession for the rest of the world minus the United States, which is probably why it hasn't been called a recession on most of the main media channels yet. I'm not entirely sure how the US is pulling off their economic miracle either since there are multiple trade wars that they're embroiled in. Maybe that's how they do it and it's getting everyone to invest their money into the US' economy. I know that Canada is in a massive slump that feels different from every other since it's been down for years with only slight instances of reprieve. This doesn't feel normal, and I have a feeling it's due to a neutering government which is chopping our economy off at the knees and making it run a 100m sprint.

Regardless, the prehistory for Bitcoin is actually pretty neat. The number of advances and considerations for technology leading up to cryptos truly is mind-boggling.

[VB1001]

Thank you, for all the comments and contributions, they are already updated.

Now I need to verify the dates that refer to the administrators that Bitcointalk has had.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5126554.msg50395431#msg50395431

@theymos

You can confirm if the dates are correct, please?

[d1ceplayer]

So this really started from a long time ago. Really nice to see that someone took out their time to record all these and put them together, so that everyone can be able to see where and how it started. They have been on this since the 70’s and it continued till the last decade and we have got bitcoin from Satoshi who we are yet to know who he is. A lot of people are still confuse at what us the purpose of all this and what bitcoin us really meant for, sometime in the future we will get to know, as for now, it is for a peer-to-peer transaction.

[MrFreeRoMan]

So this really started from a long time ago. Really nice to see that someone took out their time to record all these and put them together, so that everyone can be able to see where and how it started. They have been on this since the 70’s and it continued till the last decade and we have got bitcoin from Satoshi who we are yet to know who he is. A lot of people are still confuse at what us the purpose of all this and what bitcoin us really meant for, sometime in the future we will get to know, as for now, it is for a peer-to-peer transaction.

So you can still include in the list William Stanley Jevons

In his 1874 book The Principles of Science, he wrote:

"Can the reader say what two numbers multiplied together will produce the number 8616460799? I think it unlikely that anyone but myself will ever know"


description one-way functions

[VB1001]

The Bitcoin logo:

There is little talk of the Bitcoin logo, I have compiled a bit of information about this.



The first design of the Bitcoin logo was created by satoshi nakamoto with the inscription BC / 2009

satoshi > New icon/logo / Feb-2010

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=64.msg21766#msg21766







bitboy > More Bitcoin logos, buttons, and also some other graphics / Nov-2010

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1631.0



bitboy, interpreted that the Bitcoin logo should be accepted as a brand image and marketing, change of color gold to orange, the inclined symbol, the vertical bars at the ends, is a unique design and very successful for merchandising.

The logo is also part of the Bitcoin story.

As always, I was pleasantly surprised to read 2010/2011 threads, mainly for their comments, content and to see forum members who are still active in Bitcointalk.





https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Promotional_graphics

[Decksperiment]

A very good overview of where Bitcoin started and since its a chart for Bitcoin prehistory, maybe you could add in the timeline the origins of cryptography and its evolution over time especially in World War II era where there are serious work being done about it which I guess lays the foundation of modern cryptography which is directly related to Bitcoin. Imho.

[el kaka22]

Bitcoin wasn't created out of "sudden thoughts" but there was previous tries before bitcoin came to be but that doesn't mean bitcoin took something from them and made it better, it was something totally different with the same idea.

Bitcoin put the emphasis on the decentralized part, all the previous tries didn't had the power of blockchain with them, it was a currency and it was unknown how it would be used but when bitcoin was created it was powered by blockchain which made the big difference between bitcoin and all other previous tries.

So, we can say that the "online money" idea was old as internet itself but the blockchain idea was purely new and that was the difference that made bitcoin super known and used by everyone. I am still thankful that I was around early and got in very early, it changed my life but if I have seen all others previously I would never got into them.

[MrFreeRoMan]

1913 / 2019 - This is what happens with a traditional monetary system.

https://twitter.com/Goldbroker_com/status/1094717801166704643

Value of the Dollar Today
Why the Dollar Is Worth So Much Less Than It Used to Be

[Julunguul]

I just realized that Bitcoin was basically moved by several invoices about cypher or cryptography. I have also studied this for a while and yes it is quite difficult for me to continue. And btw, that logo of Bitcoin with stand upright is better than the right-tilted.

[MrFreeRoMan]

History of Bitcoin 2009-2018 (Git Visualization)

And this:
Announcing the first release of Bitcoin, a new electronic cash
system that uses a peer-to-peer network to prevent double-spending

Bitcoin v0.1 released
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/bitcoin/bitcoin-0.1.0.rar

[redsun114]

You really took your time to write all this? I can't even read up to half of what you have written here cause I don't read much. If we are talking about cryptocurrency and the creation, all these people that you have mentioned here, no one is going to remember them as long as it crypto we are talking about. Everyone has their own field where they will be remembered, if you're talking about cryptocurrency then the only person everyone remembers is Satoshi Nakamoto and no one else. He's the creator of cryptocurrency and that's all we know. Others should only take glory in their own respective fields.

[VB1001]

^
Of course, all the merit of Bitcoin belongs to Satoshi Nakamoto, but here we are describing the prehistory of Bitcoin, there are several protocols that are used today and are older than Bitcoin.

Bitcoin v0.1 released

Satoshi Nakamoto Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:05:49 -0800

Announcing the first release of Bitcoin, a new electronic cash
system that uses a peer-to-peer network to prevent double-spending.
It's completely decentralized with no server or central authority.

https://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg10142.html

[VB1001]

"BTC is the Monetary layer of the internet protocol:"



https://twitter.com/mrcoolbp/status/1142070202676457472

This graphic is like a simplified version of the thread.