About 10 years ago the majority of the world was getting butchered by the wealthys financial interests, so a group of individuals set out to change the way we view currencies and the way the financial markets operate. They were looking for a way to create a digital currency. There were several initiatives, and each of them laying down some crucial groundwork for what we now consider cryptocurrencies. But really none of them seemed to be capable of solving the issues that people were dealing with at the time.
On 31 October, everything changed. Satoshi Nakamoto released the whitepaper which was to become the foundation of Bitcoin. A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System was the title of the whitepaper. The paper proposed a digital currency based on a distributed network and cryptographic proof, with the purpose of enabling peer-to-peer transaction. The system in Satoshis whitepaper was, and still is, revolutionary because it proposed a way of transacting wealth without having to rely on a trusted third party.
As the Bitcoin network was launched in January 2009 Satoshis idea was met with mixed criticism . Some early adopters were inspired by this new system while the majority were more critical. The new Internet money was named things like a scam, or a way new way of paying for criminal activity. In hindsight we can all agree that Satoshi Nakamoto was a visionary, and that his solution for peer-to-peer transactions worked.