by Bitcoin – A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System was posted to the Bitcoin mailing list on Oct. 31, 2008. Satoshi Nakamoto, the mystery inventor, remained anonymous. However, the document had a strong resemblance to the writing style of e-mails sent from the creator, Bitcoin Talk Forum member “satoshi”. Satoshi is often referred to as Satoshi Nakamoto, but this name is used strictly for open-source purposes. There are no conclusive reports identifying the “real” Satoshi Nakamoto.
The first block of transactions was introduced in December of 2009 and contained nine transactions. In August of 2010 the second block and the first transaction not contained a coinbase was added. This only brought the total to a meager 49 transactions or coins. It wasn’t until November of 2010 that the first major transaction was made in the world wide open for all to see. Laszlo Hanyecz of Vancouver sent 10,000 Bitcoins to a pizzeria.
Over time, the number of transactions increased to a staggering 50,000 at the height of the bull market in late-2017. At the time of writing this piece (April 2019), the number of transactions is officially 10,812,470, according to blockchain.com. Transactions have risen over 1.8 million since the first Bitcoin was created in 2009, primarily thanks to exchanges/exchanges. These include MtGox, Bitstamp, Bitfinex, Poloniex, Kraken, Bittrex, CEX.IO and many more.
The primary difference between Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is how they’re mined and verified. Unlike other crypto currencies, a blockchain exists with every Bitcoin transaction. This can be thought of as the answer key to a mystery. The Bitcoin blockchain essentially records and keeps track of every transaction.
It starts with a single Genesis block, which contains the first 50 Bitcoins ever generated. From there the blockchain grows at a slow pace, approximately 1.5 blocks every 10 minutes. Each subsequent block is a copy of the previous block, with the addition of new transactions (on average, 2,000 every 10 minutes).
All of this results in a relatively strong-rooted blockchain, even when adding nearly 400 million transactions a day. The amount of data within each block can vary, but keep in mind that the current block size is 1MB, which could easily become large in the future.
