As already mentioned, the history of cryptocurrency begins with the appearance of 3 January 2009 the first version (0.1.0) of the program of Bitcoin for Windows, the author of which was one
Nakamoto. To date, it is unknown whether Satoshi is a real person or under the given alias operated a group of programmers, but most importantly, the idea worked, and went to mass.
The program was both a purse and a generator of new cryptocurrencies. Generating one valid block, which was recorded in the blockchain, the person who generated the received a reward of 50 bitcoins. Accordingly, since system startup the number of bitcoins began to grow very rapidly.
However, then they were worth a few cents. However, those who wait too long to navigate, was able to earn a lot. According to General estimates Nakamoto himself for the first year of operation of the system has created several hundred thousand bitcoins, the capitalization of which at the current rate comes to 1 billion dollars!
The system was originally based on the principle that with the increase in the number of bitcoins is proportionally increased and the complexity of their generation. Therefore, those who began to use it by the end of 2009 found that the capacity of the CPU a standard PC to create a new amount of cryptocoins is simply not enough.
However, many wanted to earn, so was invented a way to speed up calculations using a combination of several powerful graphics cards (such a bundle is called "the farm"). The GPU was faster than a normal CPU, thus, allowed to iterate through the hashes fairly quickly. From that moment, a kind of "gold rush" in mining (from the English. "mining" – "mining") bitcoins.
The farm makes a profit, okupa its value in a couple of months, until the end of 2010. However, during this time, the size of the blockchain, and hence the computational complexity has increased so much that even the capacities of several top-end graphics cards was not enough. Therefore, to increase performance, some miners began to band together in so-called "Pula" (from the English. "pool" – "the common Fund").
Pools exist today, combining into a network of tens and hundreds of mining farms around the world. However, the speed of bitcoin mining and the size of equity awards is not the ones that were there before. With the production of the first third of the total number of virtual coins 28 November 2012, the remuneration for the generation of a new block reduced by half (to 25 bitcoins), and by the end of July this year a further decrease (to 12.5 BTC).
Given the trends in the rate of production of bitcoin assume that the last virtual coin will be produced by the end of 2030-ies and the generation of reward will be zero. Since then, the possibility of earnings will disappear and Bitcoin will either remain a kind of electronic equivalent of gold or depreciate and become useless.