History of Cryptographic Currencies

Abstract

The history of cryptographic currencies rests on two foundations. The first is the history of distributed systems research in general, and the second is the history of electronic cash systems. In the early days, these two areas of research had very few connections with each other, despite the use of cryptographic primitives. Both fields are related to research and advances in cryptography, and particularly research in the area of electronic cash was driven by the inventions in the area of asymmetric cryptography, e.g., blind signature schemes. In retrospect, Bitcoin provided the missing link between those fields of research to create a decentralized cryptographic currency. Bitcoin cherry-picked the right pieces from each of these areas and combined them. One byproduct of the rise of Bitcoin is an increased interest in distributed systems research as well as in electronic payment systems and currencies.