The history of blockchain and Bitcoin
Blockchain was introduced with the invention of Bitcoin in 2008. Its practical implementation then occurred in 2009. For the purposes of this chapter, it is sufficient to review Bitcoin very briefly, as it will be explored in great depth in Chapter 6, Introducing Bitcoin. However, it is essential to refer to Bitcoin because, without it, the history of blockchain is not complete.
The events that led to blockchain
Now we will look at the early history of computing and computer networks and will discuss how these technologies evolved and contributed to the development of Bitcoin in 2008. We can view this in chronological order:
- 1960s – Invention of computer networks
- 1969 – Development of ARPANET
- 1970s – Early work on secure network communication including public key cryptography
- 1970s – Cryptographic hash functions
- 1973 – Extension of ARPANET to other geographic locations...
