1976

• Whitfield Diffie & Martin Hellman
  • "New Directions in Cryptography"

1981

• David Chaum
  • Publication of the article "Untraceable Electronic Mail, Return Addresses, and Digital Pseudonyms"

1983

• David Chaum
  • Publication of the article "Blind Signatures for Untraceable Payments"

1988

• Timothy C. May
  • Publication of the "Crypto Anarchist Manifesto"

1989

• David Chaum
  • "Foundation of Digital Cash"

1992

• Start of the Cypherpunks movement in San Francisco (USA) by Erick Hughes, Timothy C. May, and John Gilmore

1993

• Eric Hughes
  • Publication of the "Cypherpunk Manifesto"

1994

• Timothy C. May
  • Publication of "The Cyphernomicon"
• Creation of "Cybercash"

1996

• Creation of "E-gold"

1997

• 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"

1998

• 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)"

1999

• Many online virtual currencies in the dotcom bubble (Beenz, Flooz, etc.) (1998 to 2001)

2001

• Emergence of video game currencies and their respective markets

2006

• Liberty Reserve
  • "Centralized digital currency service based in Costa Rica"

2008

• Satoshi Nakamoto
  • Publication of "Bitcoin: a peer-to-peer electronic cash system"