Since the arrival of Bitcoin in 2008, the blockchain, a distributed digital database that maintains secure records of transactions, has produced a boom in crypto-currencies such as Ethereum and Dogecoin that have made and lost fortunes for investors. They have also led to the creation of Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs), a form of digital receipt or certificate of ownership kept on a blockchain, that are currently fueling their own investment bubble for NFTs linked to simple digital images, but both blockchains and NFTs have the potential to do much more.
BITCOIN TIME TRAVELLER?
Bitcoin and the blockchain debuted in 2008 when a white paper entitled was published by someone calling themselves “ Satoshi Nakamoto”, who also went on to devise the first blockchain database on which Bitcoin was run. “Nakamoto” remained active in the Bitcoin world until 2010, by which time it was clear that “Satoshi Nakamoto” was a pseudonym for a person or a collective; then he, she, or they vanished. Since then, there has been much speculation as to Nakamoto’s identity, with several people being named as, or claiming to be, either the man himself, or one of the collective operating under that name,