A Brief History of what we know as Crypto! Bitcoin did not magically appear out of thin air. It was the product of more than 40 years of research and development. You can see many of these technical breakthroughs on this timeline: An important takeaway from this visual is that bitcoin was not only built on top of the internet and cryptographic inventions, but it was also the culmination of years of hard work on the foundational ideas of the cypherpunk movement. You can see Murray Rothbard produced “The Ethics of Liberty” in 1982. Timothy C. May created “The Crypto-Anarchist’s Manifesto” in 1988. Eric Hughes published “A Cyperpunk’s Manifesto” in 1993. May followed up again with “The Cyphernomicon” in 1994. Finally, in October 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto published the Bitcoin white paper which would become the most successful digital currency to date. Bitcoin is the technical manifestation of the idea, but the idea is unstoppable. As Victor Hugo once said, “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” That has been true throughout history and it is still true today.
-- As bitcoin approaches its "'halving" -- a planned adjustment in the number of coins in circulation -- around Saturday, the cryptocurrency market is bracing for volatility amid a 50% jump in prices since the end of last year.
Since reaching an all-time high of around $73,000 in mid-March, bitcoin prices have continued to be volatile within a high range. As of Wednesday morning New York time, prices had fallen below $61,000.
One factor behind the price increase since the beginning of the year is the fact that the price of bitcoin tends to rise after a halving.