Raise your hands if you were there on January 9, 2009 to witness the birth of Bitcoin. Oh, just one of you? Bitcoins solitary and humble beginnings contrast with its position today as a technological and cultural phenomenon. Dare we say “household name” yet? In some households maybe, although not always in the way we would like. On Bitcoin’s 16th birthday, we can say our favorite peer-to-peer electronic cash system has blossomed, but still has a lot to grow.
And boy, is it about to grow. 2025 will come Theranodegiving the BSV network more power than anyone ever imagined. Learn as much as you can and use it wisely.
What’s with all the birthdays?
As you may have noticed, Bitcoin has several “birthdays”, and there are several dates with a valid claim to be important anniversaries. It’s the anniversary of white paper (31 October 2008), the Genesis Block (3 January 2009), on first Bitcoin transaction (12 January 2009) and first Bitcoin purchase (Laszlo Hanyecz’s pizza delivery, May 22, 2010). On January 16, 2020, the Bitcoin SV Node Team was reinstated Bitcoin’s original protocol rules with Bitcoin 1.0.0, or the “Genesis Upgrade”. Bitcoin could finally scale limitlessly on the blockchain, and miners gained more control over how users could use their services.
But here’s wishing Bitcoin another happy birthday on January 9th. Why is that so? Well, that’s because it was the day Satoshi Nakamoto released the first version of Bitcoin’s protocol software (Bitcoin v0.1) to the public on SourceForge. At the same time, he started using it himself. It marked the mining of “Block #1”, the first spendable mining grant of 50 coins, and the moment proof-of-work (PoW) officially started to keep the network secure.
From the moment the software was released, Bitcoin became a open and public networkavailable for anyone to use – or at least anyone who knew about it and cared enough to try it. It was, to put it mildly, not a large number of people at that time. It’s probably proof that time travel will never be invented because, if it is, thousands of future Bitcoiners will immediately go back to January 9, 2009 and start mining furiously.
Instead, the first nine blocks (at least) were mined solely by Satoshi Nakamoto. Hal Finney joined the network at Block #70, and it is highly likely that Satoshi’s network also broke everything up to that point. The block grant of 50 coins for each block greatly contributed to Satoshi’s now-legendary Bitcoin fortune—a pristine stash that continues to intrigue, tempt, and tease multiple groups to this day.
You will also notice that Bitcoin Block #1 arrived six days after Block #0 (aka “Genesis Block“), which is significantly more than the protocol-defined ~10-minute intervals between every other block since then. The only detailed explanation we’ve heard for this delay is the one involving Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) patches and network reboots before Bitcoin could properly launch. If you don’t buy that story, the only other reasons are guesswork. Only Satoshi knows for sure.
So if we assume that Block #0 was just a marker for the network to begin, then Block #1 on January 9th is Bitcoin’s true “birthday”. Or, given that there are three significant anniversaries in January, maybe we could just declare the entire month Bitcoin Month and have a longer party.
Nobody understands me!
On January 9, 2025, there will probably be as many people who truly understand Bitcoin as there were people who mined it on that day in 2009. While it may be well into its teens now, Bitcoin is still largely an uncharted landscape. Even most of the so-called “experts” do not fully understand its potential. Few agree on what it really is and what it will become. It doesn’t get much more teenage than that.
Watch: Calvin Ayre is all in on Metanet – the game-changing fusion of enterprise blockchain, AI and IPv6
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