While it might surprise some to learn that crypto technology has been evolving since the early 90s, what shouldnt come as a shock is just how far the technology has come- and how far it hopes to go.

Few buzzwords are as powerful as blockchain and crypto these days. Each creating a thought association with novel technological practice. Even though these terms arent actually new. Crypto technologies have been available for nearly two decades, but only recently have created adaptable, necessary, and accessible applications for the everyday person.

So much so that trading, purchasing, and using the coin have become commonplace in many peoples lives. Even new users and laypeople can enjoy the thrill of an exchange platform, like for example https://bitvavo.com/en with little to know expert knowledge on the subject. This timeline of the evolution of bitcoin and its associated technologies lets us know just how far weve come, so we can all look forward to just how far we can go.

Blockchain has been evolving since Stuart Hager and Scott Stornetta began work on the first blockchain ever. However, 2013 is a notable moment in the history of blockchain, as this is when alternate cryptocurrencies began to evolve and the world received a new term, hard fork.

A hard fork is a divergence from the original functionality of any given blockchain network or cryptocurrency protocol. This divergence ends one protocol splitting, creating a new coin, token, or network along with it. 2013 marked the first known hard fork when Vitalik Buterin released the Ethereum white paper.

In 2009, the father(s) of bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto released a white paper explaining how the blockchain technology that they had developed could provide the structure to create a fully decentralized currency.

Little is known about Nakamoto. Some believe that it is one man or woman, others are sure that it is a group of people. Whoever Nakamoto is, what was conceptualized by them in 2008, was soon to grow into one of the biggest names in tradable assets, digital trust, and decentralized power structures.

This is bitcoin. Bitcoin changed the way we think, not only about currency and assets themselves but about data accumulation and dissemination.

2013 is also an important year for bitcoin, as in February of that year, the main payment processor for bitcoin at the time reported selling $1 million worth of bitcoin in a single month. Through that year, the bitcoin marketplace surpassed $1 billion, showing the marketplaces flair for value volatility and returns.

In the United States, regulating bodies began to sit up and take notice of the technology. Instituting regulations on traders and shutting down the infamous Silk Road empire. Effectively showing the public that bitcoin was here to stay.

When Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin saw the potential of blockchain, he knew he had to take it further. Ethereum became a full-blown, decentralized network. Enabling users to undertake smart contracts and begin the creation of decentralized applications (dApps).

Smart contracts are like any other contract, only using blockchain technologies instead of arbiters and intermediaries. These contracts are capable of adding in something that original blockchain technology couldnt offer- contingencies.

Smart contracts work with if-then protocols, meaning that the next step in the contract cannot begin until the previous request has been met satisfactorily. Normally, we use a person to guarantee that each benchmark is met, which doesnt always work the way it should. With smart contracts, these benchmarks are non-negotiable and if theyre not carried out as planned, the contract will cancel.

2017 saw the development of yet another hard fork that would change the world of crypto. EOS.io is unveiled as a new protocol within the blockchain that would allow for the further deployment of dApps.

This open-source network aims to encourage users to create their own applications and smart contracts sans-centralization. Which was a massive game-changer in 2017. The continued development of dApp friendly platforms meant that more people had improved access to develop the dApps that they needed most- and use dApps that had already been created by others.

Keep in mind that this is a far cry from an exhaustive list of all the bright points that sparkle in blockchain history. There have been a number of innovations, resulting in an exponentially amount of new technology- designed to solve the problems that plague us most.

The key to the underlying usefulness of crypto and blockchain technologies is that these systems boost trust, reliability, security, and self-sufficiency. All by removing the centralization that far too often becomes corrupted in common day society.

So where will crypto go in the future? Well, the possibilities truly are limitless, so that makes it incredibly hard to say. But, surely, it will continue to evolve exactly as we need it to.

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Crypto Timeline: The Evolution of Bitcoin, Blockchain, and Cryptocurrency Technologies - BlockPublisher