Crypto history
Hashcash: proof of work before Bitcoin
A computational postage stamp for internet abuse became one ingredient in a different system: public transaction ordering.
Research · History · Reference
Crypto history
From the ideas before Bitcoin to programmable networks, market cycles and failures. Read by era or year.
Follow the mechanism as well as the date. These reading paths connect technical milestones with the institutions, incentives and failures around them. The timeline keeps individual events and their sources separate.
Full timeline · 123 ↗1991–2008
Before Bitcoin
Events from this era ↗
Crypto history
b-money: shared balances before the blockchain
Wei Dai’s 1998 proposal explored pseudonymous accounts, distributed bookkeeping and contract enforcement before Bitcoin.
Crypto history
RPOW: reusable tokens and the hardware trust boundary
Hal Finney’s 2004 experiment made proof-of-work tokens reusable through an attested server, with a different trust model from Bitcoin.
2009–2014
Bitcoin and early infrastructure
Events from this era ↗
Crypto history
Bitcoin’s genesis block: what the record establishes
The first block provides an inspectable starting point. Its timestamp, embedded text and special reward behaviour answer different questions.
Crypto history
2008–2009: Bitcoin and the problem of double spending
The original design addressed payment history without a central operator, not every form of financial deception.
Crypto history
Mt. Gox: the long tail of a custody failure
From the 2014 exchange collapse to civil rehabilitation and repayments: custody, creditor claims and the dates behind the headlines.
2015–2017
Programmable networks and token sales
Events from this era ↗
Crypto history
2015: Ethereum makes shared computation a public service
Frontier expanded the blockchain model from a payment history into a platform for programmes and persistent state.
Crypto history
The DAO: code, governance and the 2016 split
The application incident and the community's response became separate parts of Ethereum history.
Crypto history
The ICO era: selling access to a future product
Fundraising, token rights and paid distribution became tightly connected.
2018–2021
DeFi, NFTs and market expansion
Events from this era ↗
Crypto history
2018: Uniswap makes pooled liquidity a trading venue
Automated market makers changed who could create a market and where execution costs appeared.
Crypto history
2020: liquidity mining turns usage into a token reward
Compound's distribution helped popularise an incentive model that made activity and sustainable demand harder to separate.
Crypto history
2021: the NFT boom connects provenance, art and speculation
Beeple's auction showed the reach of tokenised ownership, while the token standard left many rights outside the contract.
2022–2026
Failures, upgrades and new access routes
Events from this era ↗Crypto history
Terra and UST: the peg, the collapse and the fraud cases
The redemption mechanism explains the feedback loop; the court records explain the misleading claims surrounding it.
Crypto history
FTX and Alameda: customer money, privileged accounts and the bankruptcy
How the exchange funded its affiliated trading firm, why the risk engine did not protect customers and what later recovery percentages actually measured.
Crypto history
2022: Ethereum replaces mining with proof of stake
The Merge changed block production while preserving application state and the existing ETH asset.
Crypto history
2024: Dencun gives rollups a separate data market
Blob transactions reduced one component of rollup costs without turning every layer 2 into the same security model.
Crypto history
2024: US spot Bitcoin ETPs change the access route
Exchange-traded exposure brought a familiar securities wrapper around an asset still held through a custody chain.