Bitcoin’s remarkable growth in value is a curious story. Launched in March 2009 worth $0, Bitcoin reached parity with the dollar in September 2011. In November last year it peaked in value at over $60,000 and at the time of writing its worth has collapsed to around $20,000.
But behind all the hype and bluster is the questions of how this value emerged from nothing. And how its founding members were able to keep this growth on track without being tempted to exploit this value for themselves.
In its early days, Bitcoin was particularly vulnerable to a kind of exploit called a “51 per cent attack”, which allows individuals or groups working together to spend the same Bitcoins repeatedly. So economists are curious about why nobody gamed the system to take more for themselves, particularly when Bitcoin’s anonymity would have protected them.
Today, they get an answer of sorts thanks to the work of Alyssa Blackburn, a data scientist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and colleagues, who have used Bitcoin’s early transaction records to study its emergence and the behavior of those who enabled it.
