Meet Bitcoin, What is Bitcoin? How Did It Appear?

On 31 October 2008, an email was sent to the cyherpunk group. This e-mail, sent by a user named Satoshi Nakamoto, was attached to an article written in a purely academic format. The content of the article talked about a new digital currency and a consensus network that implemented a peer-to-peer payment system without an intermediary organisation. A digital currency was not a new idea, many well-intentioned projects had been developed over the years, but no long-term successful system had been developed.

Bitcoin, which was encrypted with cryptography and detailed solutions to the problems faced by previous digital currencies such as transfer, storage and double spending, proposed a programme quite different from the traditional financial system. Bitcoin's achievement of fast and low-cost peer-to-peer money transfers is a revolution compared to traditional financial systems. One of the most important factors in Bitcoin's success was its timing. 

In 2008, the effects of the Global Financial Crisis, which started in the US as a result of the excessive rise in prices in the housing sector and the increase in non-repayable loans, were felt by the whole world, many institutions went bankrupt. Thousands of employees were left unemployed, and one of the most striking discourses during the crisis period was "too big fail", that is, "too big to fail". This expression was used for the economy and large financial institutions that had to stop their activities due to their size and connections. The failure of huge financial institutions, which were kept afloat for a while in line with monetary expansion policies, meant that many organisations with which they had business connections could not continue their operations and the economy would fall one after another like dominoes at the end of the day. The big picture could be viewed from a different perspective: "if an organisation is too big to fail, it is too big to exist". People's faith in the system has been shaken as a result of public authorities protecting astronomical CEO salaries instead of protecting the interests of the public, whose purchasing power and shelf space have declined.

Can One Email Change the World?

At the time, this article was criticised by some people and supported by others. Hal Finney, who believed in this system, contributed to the development of the system by working with Satoshi Nakamoto, and the first bitcoin transfer from spouse to spouse took place between these two. A person named Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10 thousand bitcoins for two medium-sized pizzas on 22 May 2010, making the first purchase made with bitcoin.  With the open source code on which bitcoin is based, thousands of new digital currencies were developed and an economy totalling billions of dollars was developed.

Bitcoin, which is still the most valuable and most popular cryptocurrency after decades, and Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of this system, is still a mystery. The person or persons behind this name did not come forward and own this system that changed the world, announced that he withdrew from the project with a message published in 2011 and could not be reached after that day. This system, which has no owner or centre, continues to survive thanks to its algorithm and people who believe in it. With each passing day, new ideas are added to this idea and it continues to grow and develop.