The First Cryptocurrency:

Bitcoin
In 2008, an internet user known only by the internet name,
Satoshi Nakamoto, published an online paper entitled bitcoin: A
Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, in which they detailed
methods of using a peer-to-peer network to generate electronic
transactions. The identity of Satoshi Nakamoto is still disputed
and it is speculated that the name may be a collective pseudonym
for multipal individuals.
Bitcoin.org was officially registered as a domain name on 18
August, 2008 and the bitcoin network officially came into
existence in January 2009 with the release of the first open
source bitcoin client and the issuance of the first bitcoins. This
first block of mined bitcoin, gone on to be known as the Genesis
Block, was mined on January 3 with the first transaction of bitcoin
currency taking place between on 12 January 2009.
On 5 October, 2009, New Liberty Standard published a bitcoin
exchange rate that established the value of bitcoin at US$1 =
1,309.03 BTC. It was calculated using an equation which includes
the cost of electricity for running a computer in order to mine
bitcoin. On 6 February, 2010, the Bitcoin Market was established
and a currency exchange was born.
The first real-world transaction using bitcoin took place on 22 May
2010, when someone in Jacksonville, Florida, paid 10,000
bitcoins for a pizza on the Bitcoin Forum. At the time, the
exchange rate put the price of the pizza at around $25.
Bitcoin has since grown and the number of transactions per day
can range from 175,000 to 325,000. Since the pizza purchase,
the estimated total number of bitcoin transactions is approaching
 180,000,000, as of December 2016. It is believed that 14 million
bitcoins have been mined so far, representing two-thirds of the 21
million bitcoin limit.
But because transactions done using Bitcoin are entirely private
and anonymous, the cryptocurrency has become notorious for its
use in criminal activities, ranging from drug peddling to
pornography and money laundering. Those illegal Bitcoin
transactions have, in turn, attracted the attention of the
FBI, https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2012/05/Bit
coin-FBI.pdf
the U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission https://m.investor.gov/additional-resources/news-
alerts/alerts-bulletins/investor-alert-ponzi-schemes-using-
virtual and the European Police Office, the law enforcement
agency of the EU.
In one prominent case in 2014, Bitcoin trader Charlie Shrem was
sentenced to two years in jail for indirectly helping people swap
cash for bitcoins on the Silk Road marketplace. Silk Road was an
online marketplace that dealt in illegal drugs and accepted only
bitcoin as payment. It was shut down by U.S. authorities in 2013.
Two years later, Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht was sentenced
to life in prison.