Widely regarded as the earliest cryptocurrency exchange, BitcoinMarket opened for trading on 17 March of 2010. The platform was created by Bitcoin early adopter Dustin Dollar (United States), who floated the concept on the BitcoinTalk forum on January 15, 2010.
What Is a Cryptocurrency Exchange?
A cryptocurrency exchange is a platform that lets users buy, sell, and trade digital assets by matching orders (or quoting prices) and facilitating settlement, typically by converting between crypto and other currencies or by enabling crypto-to-crypto trades.
Top 3 Crypto Exchanges Today
By trading volume and user reach, the exchanges most commonly considered among the top tier include Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken.
Top 5 Oldest Crypto Exchanges and Founding Dates
BitcoinMarket — 17 March 2010. Mt. Gox — July 2010. TradeHill — June 2011. BTC-e — July 2011. Bitstamp — August 2011.
Record Details
| Exchange | Founder | Claim to Fame | Location | Launch Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BitcoinMarket | Dustin Dollar | First | Not applicable | 17 March 2010 |
How BitcoinMarket Came Online
The exchange debuted as a straightforward venue for Bitcoin, positioning itself as the first place where users could price and trade BTC. In the months after its debut, other early trading venues began to appear and iterate on the same basic idea—bringing liquidity, order matching, and public pricing into a more centralized format.
BitcoinMarket mattered because it introduced a shared marketplace where a public BTC price could form through real bids and offers, rather than through private deals or fixed-rate quotes.
Precursor Services and Fixed Rates
Before BitcoinMarket, a few informal services handled Bitcoin swaps.
- NewLibertyStandard (October 2009)
- Other informal swap services (if any): forum-arranged trades, IRC deals, and in-person swaps
Those services were not full trading platforms; the rate between Bitcoin and fiat currencies could be fixed and derived by an operator from typical electricity costs and the mining difficulty of the period. Before dedicated exchanges became available, people also obtained Bitcoin by mining it directly or by receiving it as payment from early adopters.
From Market Leader to Mt. Gox’s Shadow
BitcoinMarket led the scene for about a year, but recurring fraud issues prompted PayPal to block payments to the site on June 4, 2011. Problems commonly associated with early exchange operations—such as payment chargebacks, disputed transfers, and account-compromise attempts—made reliable fiat processing difficult, and the platform lost momentum. Following that blow, it was soon overtaken by the later notorious Mt. Gox exchange.
