Well it is speculated that Satoshi had posted on an internet forum about the concept of bitcoin in the early 2000's, around the time that paypal first came out.
Wowa, you just hit something home to me. PayPal, and eBay also for that matter, have only really been around since 2000, but today we consider them indispensable. Theoretically that is where Bitcoin will be in 15 years.
The sad thing is that Paypal's earliest incarnation was an attempt at BTC esque idealism and look what it became.
From here -
http://money.howstuffworks.com/paypal3.htm"Peter Thiel and Max Levchin founded PayPal in December 1998 under the name Confinity. Operating out of Silicon Valley, the idealistic vision of the company was one of a borderless currency, free from governmental controls.
However, PayPal's success quickly drew the attention of hackers, scam artists and organized crime groups, who used the service for frauds and money laundering.
New security measures stemmed the tide of fraud and customer complaints, but government officials soon stepped in. Regulators and attorneys general in several states, including New York and California, fined PayPal for violations and investigated the company's business practices. Some states, such as Louisiana, banned PayPal from operating in their states altogether."
Kinda familiar, no?
