Bitcoin has evolved on different frontiers over the years; project development, value, public opinion, government interest, and of course there's the nay sayers constantly puzzled while it's still existing and always predicting it's end.
Early days (2009 - 2010)
Bitcoin did not always receive this attention, it was launched in January of 2009, by Satoshi Nakamoto few months after the domain name bitcointalk.org was registered. Most of its users then we're tech inclined individuals some who did it for fun as a hobby
Bitcoin had it's first ROI in mid 2010 as it gained parity with the USD. After then it experienced a steady rise in users and the community started to grow. The first major setback came in August 2010 when an error in the system which allows users bypass economic restrictions was exploited and 184 bitcoins was generated.
This was also the year were Satoshi stepped down for the reins and faded into obscurity, apparently handing over to Graven Anderson who was the lead technological expert
Notwithstanding, popularity and confidence continued to grow and agencies started accepting bitcoin as donations, merchants started to slaowly wake up to it and some companies even offered her workers the option to take home a part of their salary in bitcoin.
2011 - 2013
In the price front, bitcoin grew exponentially during this time and also dropped as rapidly.
It reached $31 in 2011 dropping to $2 at the end of the year.
2012 was a slow year.
Then there's was a split in bitcoin transaction log during early 2013 and for a few hours, there were two bitcoin networks operating simultaneously.
This sparked off a very volatile year for bitcoin peaking at $1242 but also dropping very suddenly. It was basically a pump and dump scheme during this time.
In the area of adoption there was steady growth during this time. Coinbase recorded selling $1million worth of bitcoin in a single month in 2013 and the open source code allowed organizations and platforms to freely use the system.
Mid Time (2014 - 2016)
This period was also met with even greater adoption as more outlets, merchants, companies, agencies and by now governments were getting actively involved in bitcoin.
It was no longer viewed as a pump and dump scheme but a valid investment option and an asset class.
Price movements were slow with reduced volatility compared to previous years (although still high) ranging from $200 - $800 during the time.
Now in addition to tech gurus, investors, traders, and individuals were getting interested.
Documentaries based on bitcoin were also released during this time.
2017;
Bitcoins legitimacy continued to grow and it gained credence, adoption also continued to grow rapidly with interest from all corners, academic and legislative. Governments were getting more actively involved as well.
And in March, it eclipsed the then peak set at 2013 ($1242) and this set of a massive surge which saw a new peak of $17900 set in Nov of 2017, which remains the current peak till today.
This was also the year of ICOs as bitcoins rise encouraged and supported similar rise in other digital currencies. This was the year bitcoin announces itself again to the world. And the issue of scalability became more prominent as the protocol was struggling to cope with increased usage.
In 2017 BCH, BitcoinCash was forked out of bitcoin and this increased a single blocksize to 8MB. We have had other forms since then.
In between all these were important but too numerous to mention all, there was the costliest pizzas ever bought also the whale who was 'schooled' when he/she tried to manipulate and drop the price, and also reports of hacks with millions of dollars worth of bitcoin stolen.
2018 so far;
This year has been my favorite crypto year (my only year actually as I joined late) and it has had the most stability and it's support level has held off higher than any other year.
Some would argue that it has been a bearish year, especially when compared with.2017, but it has also renewed interest on the product and not just the profit.
What do you think the future holds...
Year 2009 is still the tremendous and the remarkable year in the history of crypto currency as this is the year when the bitcoin was invented by its so called founder SATOSHI NAKAMOTO,and 2009 will be the remarkable year in the history of economic world also , once it will get legalised all over the world, so the bitcoin evolution follows the same human evolution phylogenetic pattern and has evolved fmwith very fast rate as it was never that easy to have millions of haters to millions of investors all around the world.