Road to Bitcoin is the growth of internet money

It has been 12 years since the first cryptocurrency appeared.

Back in October 2008 Satoshi Nakamoto published a whitepaper about a peer-to-peer electronic cash system which he dubbed “Bitcoin”.

In early 2009, the first block was mined and the first ever Bitcoin transaction took place. This marked the beginning of the creation of the first decentralized financial system.

Later, the exchange rate was set equal to 1309.03 BTC for 1 US dollar and in May 2010, for the price of 10,000 BTC, two pizzas were bought. This proved for the first time that Bitcoin has intrinsic value to it. As a result, cryptocurrency exchanges and mining farms began to appear. By the end of the year, Bitcoin's market capitalization surpassed $1 million.

The interest in this new form of electronic payments continued to grow.

In subsequent years, Bitcoin surpassed $1,000 in November 2013. But network security issues and Mt. Gox bankruptcy story marred the success, causing the prices to drop to $164 after about a year.

It took over two years for Bitcoin to surpass the $1,000 mark again in early 2017, leading to a significant surge in demand. But its network was not prepared for such a jump in activity, causing congestion and high levels of transaction fees. The problem was solved by creating a new cryptocurrency through a fork on the network, called Bitcoin Cash (BCH).

Eventually, the market moved past the rough patch, and buyer pressure continued to grow. Speculation reached unprecedented levels. As a result, in December 2017, prices arrived at a record high of $19,783.

But almost a year later, Bitcoin's price dropped to a low of $3,150. It has recovered since then and is already approaching the $20,000 mark.

Given that the number of tokens that are mined per year was recently cut in half, the projected total market value of the leading cryptocurrency is expected to grow 10 times and could surpass $2 trillion by July 2021. Meaning that the price of 1 BTC would be almost $90,000. 

But only time will tell if this happens or not.