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History of Bitcoin

Sometime in 2008, or perhaps earlier, Satoshi Nakamoto wrote a 9-page paper entitled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. The abstract of the paper, in part, says —
A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution... We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network....
So, it is obvious that Bitcoin is an electronic cash solution.

Being an open-source system (which means that it is available for everyone who wants to use it or improve it), enthusiasts started to support it. And as the cliché says, the rest is history.

Quotes

Adrianne Jeffries, The Verge, 7 March 2018

The Bitcoin system is considered the first blockchain — the epiphany that launched the blockchain industry that proponents say will revolutionize money, government, and beyond.

Christine LaGarde, IMF

Virtual currencies are in a different category, because they provide their own unit of account and payment systems. These systems allow for peer-to-peer transactions without central clearinghouses, without central banks.

Resources

The best way to start learning about bitcoin is from its origin itself via its website bitcoin.org. To begin with, try reading Nakamoto's paper - Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System - which is available for public reading and downloading in pdf format. If reading or understanding the paper is too much to digest, bitcoin.org has a rich source of resources.

Ed. I'll be writing more about bitcoin's history as I continue to make research.

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