Today in #CryptoHistory January 8, 1978… the National Bureau of Standards (now known as NIST) published the Data Encryption Standard (DES) as an official Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS). DES was one of the first modern cryptographic algorithms to be publicly vetted. Insecure by today's standards due to its short 56-bit key length, it was groundbreaking at the time and helped establish a foundation for secure electronic data transmission. #Bitcoin #History