Investors who bought Bitcoin in late May of 2017 and held on to date received a 3,100% return in just four years. Although the cryptocurrency has exploded into mainstream investing space in 2021, Bitcoin has been around long before its boom.

It all started in August 2008, as the world was in the midst of a financial crisis. The domain Bitcoin.org was registered and unbeknownst to the general public at the time, that small step would end up revolutionising the financial world.

By October a whitepaper by Satoshi Nakamoto was published outlining a decentralized system that was a "purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash that would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution."

Come January in 2009, a counterculture was created as the Bitcoin network's first-ever block of bitcoins was mined and Nakamoto sent 10 bitcoins to Hal Finney. By the 22nd of May 2010, the first "real" bitcoin transaction took place when Laszlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins, which today would be worth $29,810,000!

The cryptocurrency continued to establish itself, and Bitcoin Market, the first cryptocurrency stock exchange, arrived the same year. By July Bitcoin's price had already risen from $0.0008 to $0.08 and by January 2013, BitPay had received over 10,000 transactions. Fast forward to 2014 and Bitcoin was beginning to make its mark in the media, with a documentary called The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin being released and by February 2015, the Bitcoin price had soared to $262 and by November 2017 Bitcoin had officially hit $10,000.

In 2018 the cryptocurrency started to enter the mainstream culture and captured the attention of the media, and also had its first major crash, diving to $3,200. This led to thousands of scam allegations against the currency, while the charts moved sideways. The next year, Bitcoin remained volatile, keeping its price above $3,190 and after its lowest level in mid-June, and then soaring back to $10,000-before falling again to $7,112.73 in December 2019.

In 2020, the pandemic hit, and the economy plunged into one of its most uncertain times in recent history. Despite the uncertain market, though, cryptocurrency became increasingly popular as both a short-term trade and a long-term investment. Whether it was the increase in extra time at home that drove consumers to take up day-trading, or a desire to finally learn about long-term investments, the pandemic spurred a booming interest in cryptocurrency.

In 2021, Bitcoin has had some of its biggest moments-with epic crashes but also all-time historical highs, as it reached almost $65,000 in April before crashing and then pushing towards $67,000 in October. 

In a milestone moment, on 9 June 2021, Bitcoin was adopted as the first-ever cryptocurrency to become adopted as legal tender as El Salvador announced it would become the first country in the world to make Bitcoin a medium of exchange. By the end of next year, at least five countries will have followed in El Salvador's footsteps to accept Bitcoin as legal tender. What's next for the cryptocurrency remains to be seen but one thing is for sure, Bitcoin has pulled the rug from beneath the traditional financial world and permanently altered the way people send, receive, and store assets. 

As one of the most iconic entities in the DeFi movement, it only makes sense that Bitcoin would be celebrated by Momento, a new platform that celebrates the biggest and best players in the crypto world, including DEFI and NFTs.

Momento's goal is to pay homage to some of the most memorable and captivating moments of cryptocurrencies over the past ten years. The company aims to do this by evoking nostalgia through art with its two separate projects, one that will showcase prominent crypto projects and the other that aims to highlight some of the most talked about moments of the past decade.

The project aims to honour moments in history and make sure that they are remembered well beyond their current glory and can stand "the test of time and not fade away with hype unlike most other NFTs that we see today," the company stated in a press release. Momento will be creating a collectible series of NFTs that follows the journey of Bitcoin and other famous cryptocurrencies, from inceptions to their mass adoption in the world today.