History of Cryptocurrency

The history of cryptocurrency goes back to as far as 1998, when Wei Dai published an article, narrating the fervors of a confidential electronic transaction system by the name of B-Money. Momentarily after that, a visionary by the name of Nick Szabo came up with the notion of Bit gold. And it is not be mistaken for the Bit Gold Exchange.

Bitcoin was the first-ever cryptocurrency, created in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto, which was decentralized in nature. It basically used a Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA-256), which is one of the many hash functions of cryptography in order to embed the function of security. Thereafter in April 2011, another cryptocurrency was crafted by the name of Name coin with an aim of establishing a Decentralized Domain Name Server (DNS), in order to provide a limitation to internet usage improbable.

Another cryptocurrency popped up in 2011 with the title of Litecoin. In terms of the cryptographic hash function, it was the first one to successfully deploy scrypt instead of SHA-256. Shortly after that, another cryptocurrency, Pee rcoin came into play. It is pertinent to mention here that Sunny King also established the framework for Prime coin, however his partner decided to part ways with Peer coin in 2013 and eventually leading King as the sole core thinker behind Peer coin’s development.

Although Peer coin sought its inspiration from Bitcoin, with regards to the coding and technical execution, the source code was developed under the framework of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also known as MIT/X11. The main distinctive characteristic of Peer coin was the visionary use of its Proof of Stake (Pos) and Proof of Work (PoW) system. The PoS system was developed to tackle susceptibilities that might happen in a completely organic PoW system.

The entire framework of Peer coin utilizes the SHA-256 algorithmic function. As an informational example, for each sixteen times increase in the exchange of transaction, the PoW database of users is reduced by at least fifty percent.

Unlike other cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Name coin, and Lite coin, the foundation of Peer coin is not restricted to having the possible number of coins, but it is planned in such a way that wallet-size appreciates by one percent on annual basis. On the contrary, there is a depreciation angle to Peer coin as well. A certain amount of fee or a commission charge has to be incurred and provided to the cryptocurrency network for executing a transaction of any value just because it uses a blockchain data structure. This provided assurance to Peercoin to sustain its market growth on a long-term basis and augmented with improved productivity.

IOTA was the first of its kind whose cryptography was not based on the methodology of a blockchain data structure, rather it employed the framework of Tangle, which is a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) for warehousing the transactions. The tangle mechanism completely supersedes and ignores the blockchain data structure, and suggests characteristic that is vital to developing a Machine-to-Machine Micropayment (MMP) system. Since then, various kinds of cryptocurrencies were developed, which are often labeled as Altcoins. A smooth and perfect compound of Bitcoin decentralized framework with a tangle methodology.

Various cryptocurrencies have been developed under the methodology of cryptography, however only a few have been prosperous as they did not demand too much of technological advancement. In August 2016, the UK’s Treasury had been given the task to do a detailed evaluation of cryptocurrencies. What would be their future purpose and to what extent can they be a play a positive role, in the overall economy of the UK economy. In addition to this, the UK also commissioned that with the influx of cryptocurrencies into the economy, what kind of regulation or a regulator be brought under consideration.

Author Bio

Altug Tatlisu is the Founder & CEO at Bytus, Inc. and member of British Blockchain & Frontier Technologies Association.  Accomplished software developer with 25 years of experience in the development of applications. Excels in every stage of the life cycle of software development, including design creation, coding, debugging, testing, and maintenance. Expert in devising innovative and tailored solutions to assist businesses achieve their goals in a variety of industries. Advanced skills and knowledge of leading programming tools with a strong background in mathematics, algorithms, and data-processing logic.