Bitcoin Timeline
2018
First Ligthning Network (LN) launched by Lightning Labs
Stripe stops accepting bitcoin
On 24 January 2018, the online payment firm Stripe announced that it would phase out its support for bitcoin payments by late April 2018, citing declining demand, rising fees and longer transaction times as the reasons.
South Korea stricken regulation
On 22 January 2018, South Korea brought in a regulation that requires all the bitcoin traders to reveal their identity, thus putting a ban on anonymous trading of bitcoins.
2017
Steam announced accept no bitcoin
On 6 December 2017 the software marketplace Steam announced that it would no longer accept bitcoin as payment for its products, citing slow transactions speeds, price volatility, and high fees for transactions.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Hardforked
Up until July 2017, bitcoin users maintained a common set of rules for the cryptocurrency. On 1 August 2017 bitcoin split into two derivative digital currencies, the bitcoin (BTC) chain with 1 MB blocksize limit and the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) chain with 8 MB blocksize limit. The split has been called the Bitcoin Cash hard fork.
Bitcoin Currency Symbol
In June 2017, the bitcoin symbol was encoded in Unicode version 10.0 at position U+20BF (₿) in the Currency Symbols block.
10,000 Bitcoin Projects in Github
In March 2017, the number of Github projects related to bitcoin passed 10,000.
2016
SBB accepts bitcoin
In November 2016, 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.
Bitcoin ATMs had doubled over the last 18 months
In September 2016, the number of bitcoin ATMs had doubled over the last 18 months and reached 771 ATMs worldwide.
Network rate exceeded 1 exahash/sec
In January 2016, the network rate exceeded 1 exahash/sec.
2015
2014
Overstock.com announces their acceptance of bitcoin
2013
Baidu stops bitcoin payments
Baidu stops accepting bitcoins after China ban.
China’s Central Bank bans Bitcoin transactions
China’s central bank bars financial institutions from handling Bitcoin transactions, causing a price drop of more than 20 percent to below $1,000.
Shopify joins Bitcoin
Shopify officially integrates bitcoin as a payment option for its 70,000+ merchants.
Space travel becomes possible with Bitcoin
Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic begins accepting Bitcoin for space travel.
Cyprus university begins accepting Bitcoin
University of Nicosia in Cyprus becomes first university to accept Bitcoin for tuition.
Bitcoin moves more money than Western Union
Bitcoin transaction volume surpasses Western Union.