Bitcoin Genesis Block celebrates its 15th anniversary.
January 3, 2009 marked the beginning of the cryptocurrency market. It was a day like today that Satoshi Nakamoto implemented the Bitcoin software as open source and mined the first 50 Bitcoins in history. In October 2008, this mysterious genius was already anticipating what was to come with the publication of the Bitcoin white paper.
In reference to the first Bitcoin ever minted, this operation became known as the “genesis” block, the first block in which the asset became “unstable,” as explained in a video from Area Bitcoin.
To mark the event in history, Nakamoto inserted the headline “Prime Minister on the brink of second bailout of banks” in that day’s The Times newspaper.
Nakamoto continued to participate in block mining and forum discussions until his disappearance in 2011. To this day, the portfolio of BTC creators remains unchanged. His movements recorded on the blockchain may be one of the only records that can show he is still alive.
However, it will take some time for Bitcoin to move out of the realm of theory. It was on May 22, 2010 that Laszlo Hanyecz, an American programmer living in Florida, used those assets to pay for a pizza.
He spent 10,000 BTC on two pizzas, an act that marked the beginning of the use of cryptocurrency as a de facto medium of exchange. Since then, the event has been celebrated as Pizza Day in the cryptocurrency community.
Bitcoin halving
As predicted in the Bitcoin code, starting from the genesis block, the amount will be halved every four years, or every 210,000 blocks, with an event called ‘halving’ occurring every four years.
It is worth remembering that initially the reward per block was 50 Bitcoin every 10 minutes. Therefore, the amount of cryptocurrency issuance systematically decreases to 25 BTC in 2012 and then to 12.5 BTC in 2016.
The last halving occurred in 2020, with the volume of new tokens issued dropping to 6.25 BTC. Now, in April of this year, there will be 3,125. It is worth noting that the exact halving date cannot be specified.
Currently, according to Mempool’s data, more than 824,200 blocks have already been mined on the network, and experts predict that the event will occur at block 840,000.
As shown in the figure below, the Bitcoin code halving will only end around the year 2140, that is, when all 21 million Bitcoins have been mined.
(Clone: Area Bitcoin)
Want to solve the mystery of Bitcoin? Purchase “Satoshi’s Book,” a collection of Satoshi Nakamoto’s writings and insights.
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