Bitcoin is the first digital currency based on blockchain. It solved the double-spending problem and enabled peer-to-peer transactions on a large scale. Bitcoin was designed to work as a trustless digital currency that would function without government oversight or a central bank.
Bitcoin was developed by Satoshi Nakamoto, whose identity has never been confirmed and has become the subject of great intrigue. Bitcoin builds upon on other cryptographic and digital currency projects that came before it, but its use of blockchain made it more viable. Nakamoto originally released his white paper and open-source software on a cryptography forum. He mined the first block of the Bitcoin chain, called the genesis block in January 2009.
Bitcoins are created as a reward for a process known as mining. One of the core innovations of Bitcoin, is its consensus algorithm, which creates an incentive system that rewards miners for confirming transactions.
Hal Finney, who developed the first reusable proof-of-work system (RPOW), several years before, was the first Bitcoin adopter and received the first bitcoin transaction ever recorded on its blockchain.

Denarius is a hybrid cryptocurrency with a consensus mechanism that combines elements of Proof of Work and Proof of Stake. Denarius' cryptographic hashing algorithm, Tribus, is ASIC resistant, and consists of three of the most secure and popular cryptographic algorithms. Denarius is named after a Roman coin that was widely used during the peak of the Roman Empire.

Quantum Resistant Ledger is developing an enterprise blockchain platform that is designed to be secure against an attack from quantum computers. The Quantum Resistant Ledger (QRL) implements a more secure type of cryptographic signatures call XMSS. The network has a Proof of Stake consensus mechanism.