- Who
- bitcoin
- What
- 13:80 year(s):day(s)
- Where
- Not Applicable ()
- When
The oldest active cryptocurrency is bitcoin (blockchain and its native currency have the same name – “Bitcoin” for the blockchain and “bitcoin” for its native currency). The first block of which was mined on 3 January 2009, meaning that it is 13 years 80 days old as of 24 March 2022.
The earliest digital currencies built around cryptographic ciphers date from the early 1990s, but these precursors to Bitcoin were either never implemented or relied on centralized infrastructure, and so died when that infrastructure was decommissioned. Notable examples include Adam Back's Hashcash (1997), Wei Dai's "b-money" and Nick Szabo's "Bit Gold" (both proposed in 1998).
