Happy 10th birthday, bitcoin: 10 things you didn’t know about the cryptocurrency
The identity of the creator of the digital currency – dubbed an economic bubble by Nobel laureates – still remains a mystery a decade after it first appeared
The cryptocurrency bitcoin – a form of electronic cash – became one of the biggest talking points of 2017 when it suddenly gained the tag of being the most rewarding investment opportunity.
It is thought to have been created in 2008 by a man named Satoshi Nakamoto after the bankruptcy of the investment bank Lehman Brothers, which started a chain reaction that led the world into the most serious financial crises since the Great Depression of 1929. But the true identity of Nakamoto is still a mystery.
The world’s first, most renowned decentralised digital currency celebrated its 10th birthday in October, and in the decade since its creation, has grown in value from being worth a few pennies to reaching a record high last year of US$19,783.21.
Since then, the value of bitcoin has greatly depreciated, but it’s still considered by many as the future of currency markets.
To mark its 10th anniversary, here are 10 interesting facts about bitcoin.
1. A few thousand lines of code make up bitcoin
A paper was published on October 31, 2008 by someone using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, who said: “I’ve been working on a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party ... Participants can be anonymous.”
Then, on the evening of January 3, 2009, Nakamoto launched the software for the new digital currency, giving birth to bitcoin.
The software of the cryptocurrency bitcoin contains 31,000 lines of code: the entire Windows 2000 operating system has 19 million lines of code