Bitcoin Celebrates 15th Anniversary of its Genesis Block Mining
On January 3, 2009, an individual or group operating under the name Satoshi Nakamoto launched the Bitcoin main network by completing the genesis block with 50 BTC through mining.
The hash of the genesis block contained the headline “Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks” from a British edition of The Times newspaper.
Just before the network launch, on October 31, 2008, the Bitcoin white paper was published. The first Bitcoin transaction took place on January 12, 2009, when Satoshi Nakamoto sent 10 BTC to Hal Finney.
Three days earlier, version 0.1 of the Bitcoin software was released. The identity of Nakamoto and their motives for creating Bitcoin remain a mystery that continues to intrigue the crypto community and beyond.
One of the potential reasons for the creation of Bitcoin was the global financial crisis of 2007-2008, which resulted in the collapse of major investment banks, declining production, reduced demand and prices for raw materials, high unemployment, and heavy government involvement in the economy. In November 2021, the first cryptocurrency reached a new all-time high of $69,000.
