Despite the fact that the crypto-currencies entered our life quite recently, the first thoughts about the creation of independent electronic money appeared in the early 80-ies of the last century. Briefly enumerate the main milestones that preceded the emergence of modern cryptogen and the technology of blockade.

1. In 1983, David Chaum and Stefan Brands for the first time describe the revolutionary for those times concept of electronic money.
2. In 1992 cryptographers Timothy May, Whitfield Diffie and Philip Zimmermann openly voiced the idea of ​​creating an anonymous electronic currency capable of "striking at corporations and removing the state from financial operations." The idea is greeted with warm support from civpopankov.

3. In 1997, Adam Bakov suggests using the Hashcash technology, which later became the basis of the blockade. Later, Hell Finney contributes and develops hash chains for Hashcash.
4. In 1998, Nick Szabo and Wei Dai practically simultaneously voiced their own concepts, which become the prototypes of the current decentralized crypto-currency systems.

It should also be noted that cryptography was actively used in cash payments long before the emergence of modern crypto currency. So, similar technologies in 1990 used the bankrupt later startup DigiCash. In this case, the DigiCash system itself, unlike the crypto currency, was centralized.

The appearance of bitcoin

The history of the appearance of cryptocurrencies in their modern form, as one might expect, begins with bitcoin (before its emergence there was not only such money, but also the term "crypto-currency" itself). In 2009, a payment system was developed by a person (or, as is still believed, by several people) under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, the software of which until the summer of 2013 was based on the open source Bitcoin system.

The first block was generated on January 3, 2009, and on January 12 the first transaction for the amount of 10 BTC is made in the system. The exchange of crypto currency for real goods was recorded for the first time in history in May 2010. In the summer-2017 Bitcoin separates the Bitcoin Cash, which became an independent coin.

The dates of appearance of some other crypto-currencies

 • Ethereum - July 2015.
• Litecoin - October 2011.
• NEM - March 2015.
• Cardano - September 2015.
• Dogecoin - December 2013.
• Ripple - 2012.
• Monero - April 2014.
• Dash (formerly Darkcoin and XCoin) - January 2014.
• Peercoin - 2013.
• Lisk - May 2016.