This is a series of articles about the history of blockchain, here are all the posts: Consolidation (2010–2012), Volatility is Here (2013), New Projects, Old Scandals (2014), Bottom Is In, Investors Are On (2015), ICOs Everywhere (2016), Altseason, Forks, And All-Time-Highs (2017) and The Bull and the Bear (2018). Claps, comments and shares much appreciated!
It is common knowledge nowadays that Bitcoin and its underlying technology, blockchain, came out to the world in 2008.
But like any other major technology, there were a few necessary milestones that led to this development. In this article, we’ll explore the origins of the blockchain and its first years of life.
Pre-Bitcoin era
Cryptocurrencies may be one of the favourite portfolio assets for millennials, but most would be surprised to know that the first proposal of digital cash came out as early as 1982. In the paper “Blind signatures for untraceable payments”, researcher David Chaum, University of California, proposed for the first time the idea of digital cash.
He founded Digicash in 1990, but the company went South and filed for bankruptcy. It was the first serious attempt to take digital cash to the real world, although internet adoption was in its infancy at the time.
