People have been willing to be paid in shells, scalps, and stones because they were confident that they could use them to buy things. Bitcoin was first invented in by an anonymous founder known as Satoshi Nakamoto. I called out the price fluctuations breathlessly to my wife, who gently encouraged me not to be an idiot, before returning to her magazine. Here we go again. NextAdvisor Paid Partner. For 15 minutes at the airport, I refreshed the price of bitcoin over and over, watching as it gained and lost hundreds of dollars in a matter of minutes. Other cryptocurrencies have seen similar spikes, though they trade for much less than bitcoin.