On January 3rd, 2009, “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”
2009 the first transactions ever to take place on the Bitcoin network were undertaken in December of 2009. The BitcoinTalk Forum, an early hotbed for blockchain developers, went live in November.
2010
February — The first ever cryptocurrency exchange, Bitcoin Market, is established. The first trade takes place a month later.
April — The first public bitcoin trade takes place: 1000BTC traded for $30 at an exchange rate of 0.03USD/1BTC
May — The first real-world bitcoin transaction is undertaken by Laszlo Hanyecz, who paid 10000BTC for two Papa John’s pizzas (Approximately $25 USD)
June — Bitcoin developer Gavin Andreson creates a faucet offering 5 free BTC to the public
July — First notable usage of the word “blockchain” appears on BitcoinTalk forum. Prior to this, it was referred to as ‘Proof-of-Work chain’
July — Bitcoin exchange named Magic The Gathering Online eXchange—also known as Mt. Gox—established
August —Bitcoin protocol bug leads to emergency hard fork
December — Satoshi Nakamoto ceases communication with the world
2011
January — One-quarter of the eventual total of 21M bitcoins have been generated
February — Bitcoin reaches parity for the first time with USD
April — Bitcoin reaches parity with EUR and GBP
June — WikiLeaks begins accepting Bitcoin donations
June — Mt. Gox hacked, resulting in suspension of trading and a precipitous price drop for Bitcoin
August — First Bitcoin Improvement Proposal: BIP Purpose and Guidelines
October — Litecoin released
December — Bitcoin featured as a major plot element in an episode of ‘The Good Wife’ as 9.45 million viewers watch.
2012
May — Bitcoin Magazine, founded by Mihai Alisie and Vitalik Buterin, publishes first issue
July — Government of Estonia begins incorporating blockchain into digital ID efforts
September — Bitcoin Foundation created
September — Coinbase raises over $600k in funding
October — BitPay reports having over 1,000 merchants accepting bitcoin under its payment processing service
November — First Bitcoin halving to 25 BTC per block
2013
February — Reddit begins accepting bitcoins for Gold memberships
March — Cyprus government bailout levies bank accounts with over $100k. Flight to Bitcoin results in major price spike.
May —Total Bitcoin value surpasses 1 billion USD with 11M Bitcoin in circulation
May — The first cryptocurrency market rally and crash takes place. Prices rise from $13 to $220, and then drop to $70
June — First major cryptocurrency theft. 25,000 BTC is stolen from Bitcoin forum founder
July — Mastercoin becomes the first project to conduct an ICO
August — U.S. Federal Court issues opinion that Bitcoin is a currency or form of money
October — The FBI shuts down dark web marketplace Silk Road, confiscating approximately 26,000 bitcoins
October — The first Bitcoin ATM begins operating at Waves Coffee Shop in Vancouver
November — Vitalik Buterin releases the Ethereum White Paper: “A Next-Generation Smart Contract and Decentralized Application Platform”
November — Bitmain announces the release of the S1 Miner
November — People’s Bank of China okays Bitcoin, trading volume in the country surges to the global lead
November — Bitcoin breaks US$1,000
November — US Senate holds first ever hearings on Bitcoin
December — The first commit to the Ethereum codebase takes place
December — Chinese authorities revert stance on Bitcoin, declare it is not a currency.
2014
January — Vitalik Buterin announces Ethereum at the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami
February — HMRC in the UK classifies Bitcoin as private money
February — Major DDoS attack against three major exchanges: Mt. Gox, Bitstamp, and BTC-e
February — Mt. Gox goes offline, files for bankruptcy protection. Over 850,000 BTC are unaccounted.
March — IRS provides guidance that virtual currency will be treated as property for U.S. tax purposes
March — Credit-card processor Stripe begins accepting Bitcoin
March — Newsweek claims Dorian Nakamoto is Bitcoin creator. He is not
April — Gavin Wood releases the Ethereum Yellow Paper: “Ethereum: A Secure Decentralised Generalised Transaction Ledger”
June — Ethereum Foundation established in Zug, Switzerland
June — US Marshals Service auctions off 30,000 Bitcoin confiscated from Silk Road. All are purchased by venture capitalist Tim Draper
July — Ethereum token launch raises 31,591 BTC ($18,439,086) over 42 days
July — BitUSD, the first stablecoin, launched by BitShares
September — TeraExchange launches first U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved Bitcoin over-the-counter swap
October — ConsenSys is founded by Joe Lubin
December — By year’s end, Paypal, Zynga, Overstock.com, Expedia, Newegg, Dell, Dish Network, and Microsoft are all accepting Bitcoin for payments
2015
January — Coinbase opens up the first U.S-based cryptocurrency exchange
February — Stripe initiates bitcoin payment integration for merchants
April — NASDAQ initiates blockchain trial
June — NYDFS releases final version of its BitLicense virtual currency regulations
July — Ethereum’s first live mainnet release—Frontier—launched.
August — Augur, the first token launch on the Ethereum network takes place
September — R3 consortium formed with nine financial institutions, increases to over 40 members within six months
October — Gemini exchange launches, founded by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss
October — Bitcoin featured on the front cover of The Economist
November — Announcement of first zero knowledge proof, ZK-Snarks
November — ERC-20 token standard is proposed
December — Linux Foundation establishes Hyperledger project
December — WIRED claims that Craig Wright is probably Satoshi Nakamoto
December — Pieter Wuille releases “Segregated witness and its impact on scalability” (SegWit)
2016
January — Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja release “The Bitcoin Lightning Network: Scalable On-Chain Instant Payments”
January — Zcash announced
February — HyperLedger project announced by Linux Foundation with thirty founding members
March — Blockchain and cryptocurrency feature heavily in the Chinese government’s 5-year plan
March — Second Ethereum mainnet release, Homestead, is rolled out.
April — The DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) launches a 28-day crowdsale. After one month, it raises an Ether value of more than US$150M
May — Chinese Financial Blockchain Shenzhen Consortium launches with 31 members
June — The DAO is attacked with 3.6M of the 11.5M Ether in The DAO redirected to the attacker’s Ethereum account
July — The DAO attack results in a hard fork of the Ethereum Blockchain to recover funds. A minority group rejecting the hard fork continues to use the original blockchain renamed Ethereum Classic
July — Second Bitcoin halving to 12.5BTC per block mined
November — CME Launches Bitcoin Price Index
2017
January — Bitcoin price breaks US$1,000 for the first time in three years
February — Enterprise Ethereum Alliance formed with 30 founding members, over 150 members six months later
March — Multiple applications for Bitcoin ETFs rejected by the SEC
April — Bitcoin is officially recognized as currency by Japan
June — EOS begins its year-long ICO, eventually raising $4 billion
July — Parity hack exposes weaknesses in multisig wallets
August — Bitcoin Cash forks from the Bitcoin Network
October — Ethereum releases Byzantium soft fork network upgrade, part one of Metropolis
September — China bans ICOs
September — Amount locked in decentralized finance apps reaches $1 million
October — Bitcoin price surpasses $5,000 USD for the first time
October — CME announces Bitcoin futures
November — Bitcoin price surpasses $10,000 USD for the first time
November — Segwit2X is cancelled after a groundswell of concern from the Bitcoin community
November — Devcon3 in Cancun raises capacity twice to accommodate developer demand
December — CBOE Bitcoin futures are launched
December — Bitcoin price touches $20,000 USD
December — Lightning Network Protocol 1.0 released
December — Ethereum Dapp Cryptokitties goes viral, pushing the Ethereum network to its limits
December — MakerDAO launches DAI, signaling a future for decentralized finance
December — Long Island Iced Tea Corp. renames itself Long Blockchain Corp in a publicity stunt. Its stock price rises more than 200% at trading open
December — Median transaction fee for the Bitcoin network reaches a peak of $34 USD
December — Austrian government founds the Research Institute for Cryptoeconomy
December — 2017 sees 435 successful ICOs raising a cumulative total of over $5.6 billion USD
2018
January — Switzerland begins accepting tax payments in Bitcoin
January — 80% of all Bitcoin has been mined
January — Ethereum price peaks near $1400 USD
January — Total cryptocurrency market cap peaks at over $800 billion
January — Facebook bans all ads pertaining to cryptocurrency
March — Google bans all ads pertaining to cryptocurrency
March — Twitter bans all ads pertaining to cryptocurrency
April — 2018 outpaces 2017 with $6.3 billion raised in token launches in the first four months of the year
April — EU government commits $300 million to developing blockchain projects
April — Over 1,500 cryptocurrencies with a total market cap of $43 million
June — The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission states that Ether is not a security.
June — South Korean government invests millions into blockchain development initiatives
July — Over 100,000 ERC20 tokens created
August — New York Stock Exchange owner announces Bakkt, a federally regulated digital asset exchange
August — Monetary Authority of Singapore launches Project Ubin, proving interbank settlement use cases for Ethereum
October — Fidelity launches institutional platform for cryptocurrencies
October — Bitcoin’s 10th birthday
November — VC investment in blockchain tech surpasses $1 billion
November — Bitcoin Cash hard forks into Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin SV
December — 90% of banks in the US and Europe report exploration of blockchain tech
December — Kaspersky report claims that 19% of the global population purchased cryptocurrency prior to 2019
December — Over $2o billion USD raised in token launches throughout the year
2019
January — Coinstar machines begin selling cryptocurrency at grocery stores across the US
February — Ethereum’s Constantinople hard fork is released, part two of Metropolis
April — Bitcoin surpasses 400 million total transactions
June — Daily Ethereum transactions surpass one million
June — Facebook announces Libra
July — United States senate holds hearings titled ‘Examining Regulatory Frameworks for Digital Currencies and Blockchain”
August — Ethereum developer dominance reaches 4x that of any other blockchain
October — Block.One fined $24 million by the SEC for its unregulated $4 billion EOS ICO
October — Over 80 million distinct Ethereum addresses have been created
September — Santander bank settles both sides of a $20 million bond on Ethereum
November — Over 3000 Dapps created. Of them, 2700 are built on Ethereum
November — Amount of Ether locked in Decentralized Finance apps reaches all time high of 2.7 million ETH.
