1960s–February 2009
The Decentralized Internet
How open networks, distributed computing, and peer-to-peer systems challenged central control—and established the technical environment in which Bitcoin emerged.
Explore the history →The Monedial archive
Historical Currents
Ideas and people do not develop one event at a time.
The Bitcoin Timeline asks what happened, and when. Historical Currents explore how ideas, institutions, technologies, conflicts and people develop across time.
Follow a narrative, pause at a document, or look closer at the evidence.
1988–2011
Cypherpunk Genesis
An archival journey through the ideas, experiments and compromises from which Bitcoin emerged.
Explore the history →2009–December 2013
The Pioneer Economy
How people made Bitcoin usable, 2009–2013.
Explore the history →2010–2014
Exchange and Infrastructure Era
How Bitcoin acquired markets, hardware, wallets, payment services and institutions, 2010–2014.
Explore the history →2011–2018
The Proliferation of Altcoins
Bitcoin made alternative experiments possible. The history is the collision of those motives—not a catalogue of coins, and not a declaration that every alternative was either a breakthrough or a scam.
Explore the history →2015–2017
The Scaling Wars
Capacity, rule enforcement and competing claims to authority in Bitcoin, principally 2015–2017.
Explore the history →2018–2020
Building Through the Bear Market
The software, payment channels, custody choices and institutions that developed amid Bitcoin’s bear market and the shocks of 2020.
Explore the history →2020–2022
The Corporate Treasury Era
Corporate Bitcoin ownership, financing, accounting and liquidity, from the 2020 treasury announcements through the contrasting outcomes of 2022.
Explore the history →2021–2022
The Mining Migration
China’s mining crackdown, the retargeting rules, machines in transit, new energy dependencies and the financial shock of 2022.
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