Bitcoin in 2015

  • January Coinbase raised 75 million USD as part of a Series C funding round, smashing the previous record for a bitcoin company. Less than one year after the collapse of Mt.Gox, United Kingdom-based exchange Bitstamp announced that their exchange would be taken offline while they investigate a hack which resulted in about 19,000 bitcoins (equivalent to roughly US $5 million at that time) being stolen from their hot wallet. The exchange remained offline for several days amid speculation that customers had lost their funds. Bitstamp resumed trading on 9 January after increasing security measures and assuring customers that their account balances would not be impacted.
  • February Bitcoin price reached $262.
  • March Bitcoin startup 21 Inc. announced it had raised 116 million USD in venture funding, the largest amount for any digital currency-related companies.
  • May Ulbricht was found guilty on 7 charges of money laundering, computer hacking, and drug conspiracy in February because of his role as an operator in the silk road market.
  • June new York state Department of financial services Superintendent Benjamin Lowkey released a set of individual rules designed to regulate the Bitcoin and digital currency business that serve customers located in new York state. These rules are the first ever aimed at digital currency enterprises

  • July Former Federal agents Carl Force IV (DEA) and Shaun Bridges (Secret Service) pleaded guilty to stealing bitcoins during their active investigation into the Silk Road market.
  • August It was estimated that 160,000 merchants accept bitcoin payments. Barclays announced that they would become the first UK high street bank to start accepting bitcoin, with a plan to facilitate users to make charitable donations using the cryptocurrency outside their systems. They partnered in April 2016 with mobile payment startup Circle Internet Financial.
  • September The commodity futures trading Commission (CFTC) announced that it has filed and set payments for the bitcoin exchange to facilitate trading of options contracts on its platform.
  • October, the possibility of adding a symbol for bitcoin in Unicode is presented in the Unicode Consortium. Also at this time Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss released their own American bitcoin, called "Twins". After the launch, the exchange was licensed to operate in 26 States and was able to "serve both individual and institutional clients" due to its corporate structure, LLTC. The twins were also able to offer FDIC insurance on customer deposits through a partnership with a Bank in New York. The European court of justice ruled that the exchange of Bitcoin and" virtual currencies " does not apply to value added tax (VAT) in the European Union.
  • November Historical date for Bitcoin – The Unicode Committee adopted the bitcoin currency symbol (in uppercase B with two vertical bars passing through it but only visible from above and below) to be in a future version of the Unicode standard. The glyph will be assigned the «U + 20BF BITCOIN SIGN» slot and will eventually be displayed in standard system fonts.
  • December Security researcher and writer, Gvern Branwen, published an article in WIRED magazine claiming that an Australian man named Dr. Craig S. Wright was either Satoshi Nakamoto or a "brilliant hoaxer." Gvern brought a few deleted messages in the blog of Wright, leaked emails and transcripts, which seemed to imply that Wright is the creator of Bitcoin. In one missed decryption, Wright himself States,"I did my best to try to hide the fact that I've been working with bitcoin since 2009." In another document it is told that Wright had access to Vidoescom trust 1.1 million bitcoins.

Bitcoin in 2016

  • January Network speed exceeds 1 exahash/sec.
  • February Influential members of the bitcoin community met in Hong Kong to discuss a development plan and schedule for bitcoin scaling. The closed-door meeting included more than 30 people, service providers and bitcoin Core developers and was intended to address issues related to the block size discussion.
  • March The Cabinet of Japan acknowledges virtual currencies like Bitcoin as payment means on an equal basis with real money. The largest South African online cryptocurrency market, Bidorbuy, opens.
  • April The Steam service starts accepting bitcoin as payment for video games and other online media.
  • May Wright publicly announced that he was Satoshi Nakamoto through a blog post.
  • July Researchers published a paper showing that by November 2013 bitcoin commerce was no longer driven by "sin" activities but instead by legitimate enterprises. Uber switched to bitcoin in Argentina after the government blocked credit card companies from dealing with Uber.
  • August Hackers attack Bitfinex, a large exchange, taking almost 120 000 bitcoins (about $60 million USD).
  • September The number of bitcoin ATMs had doubled over the last 18 months and reached 771 ATMs worldwide.
  • November The Swiss railway operator SBB (CFF) upgraded all their automated ticket machines so that bitcoin could be bought from them using the scanner on the ticket machine to scan the bitcoin address on a phone app.
The history and future of Bitcoin generates more academic interest year after year; the number of Google Scholar articles published mentioning bitcoin grew from 83 in 2009, to 424 in 2012, and to 3580 in 2016. Also, the academic Ledger Journal published its first issue. It is edited by Peter Rizun.