A chronological overview of key events leading to the creation of Bitcoin by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008.
19761976
- Whitfield Diffie & Martin Hellman
- "New Directions in Cryptography"
19811981
- David Chaum
- Publication of the article "Untraceable Electronic Mail, Return Addresses, and Digital Pseudonyms"
19831983
- David Chaum
- Publication of the article "Blind Signatures for Untraceable Payments"
19881988
- Timothy C. May
- Publication of the "Crypto Anarchist Manifesto"
19891989
- David Chaum
- "Foundation of Digital Cash"
19921992
- Start of the Cypherpunks movement in San Francisco (USA) by Erick Hughes, Timothy C. May, and John Gilmore
19931993
- Eric Hughes
- Publication of the "Cypherpunk Manifesto"
19941994
- Timothy C. May
- Publication of "The Cyphernomicon"
- Creation of "Cybercash"
19961996
- Creation of "E-gold"
19971997
- Adam Back
- Creation of Hashback, an "algorithm of proof of work, used as a denial-of-service countermeasure in various systems"
- Nick Szabo
- Publication of the article "Formalization and protection of relationships in public networks"
19981998
- Nick Szabo
- Publication of the article "Protecting property titles with owner authority" – Smart Contracts
- Wei Dai
- Creation of "B money" – "decentralized database to record transactions using a type of proof of work (proof-of-work)"
19991999
- Many online virtual currencies in the dotcom bubble (Beenz, Flooz, etc.) (1998 to 2001)
20012001
- Emergence of video game currencies and their respective markets
20062006
- Liberty Reserve
- "Centralized digital currency service based in Costa Rica"
20082008
- Satoshi Nakamoto
- Publication of "Bitcoin: a peer-to-peer electronic cash system"