Before Bitcoin was born, the concept of digital money had existed since the 1980s. One of the early projects was DigiCash, created by David Chaum. Unfortunately, the project failed due to the lack of supporting blockchain technology.
Then, various cryptographic ideas like Hashcash and B-money emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s. But all of them were still just theories.
In 2008, the world was shocked by the release of a whitepaper titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” by Satoshi Nakamoto. This was a major turning point.