Cryptocurrency now a $2T industry

NEW YORK: The cryptocurrency market has grown exponentially in 2021 and is now worth a staggering $2 trillion as it increasingly attracts interest from big names on Wall Street. As digital currency exchange Coinbase prepares to list on Tuesday in New York, Agence France-Presse takes a look at a sector built from scratch just 12 years ago.

On Oct. 31, 2008, in the wake of the financial crisis, one or more anonymous people, hidden behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, published the founding white paper of Bitcoin. The goal was to create a means of payment, the security of which would not be overseen by a central bank or financial organizations, but instead regulated by software with rules almost impossible to alter.