It was Halloween 2008 when Satoshi Nakamoto, which may be a pseudonym for one or more programmers, published a paper titled "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System."
Ten years later, the digital currency developed by the still unknown creator is valued at more than $6,250 even with the wild fluctuations of the past year.
Since the first Bitcoins were sold privately, it's not clear how to assign an original value. One of the first known transactions was in May 2010 for 10,000 Bitcoins to indirectly buy two pizzas for about $30, or less than a cent for each Bitcoin.
A decade or so later, the size of the cryptocurrency market it spawned is estimated at more than $200 billion.
In May this year, the kidnapping of a 13-year-old teenager from Witbank made national headlines when the kidnappers demanded the ransom be paid in Bitcoin.
Police Spokesperson Brigadier Leonard Hlathi said at the time that the child's parents had never even heard of a "Bitcoin currency".
