Bitcoin turns 14
Satoshi Nakamoto mined the genesis block of the first cryptocurrency on January 3, 2009
Bitcoin turned 14 years old. January 3, 2009 can be considered the birthday of the first cryptocurrency. That's when the genesis block was mined, which has the date and a short excerpt from an article in The Times magazine: "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.
However, the network of the first cryptocurrency did not actually work until three months later, when Satoshi mined the first block.
The genesis block was mined on a small server in Helsinki. The reward for mining it was 50 bitcoins. The first transaction on the bitcoin network took place a few days later.
Nine months later, on October 5, Bitcoin appeared on New Liberty Standard exchange - you could buy 1309 coins for $1 (now their value is $21 million).
On February 9, 2011, bitcoin became equal in value to U.S. dollar for the first time, and on April 16 of the same year, Time magazine published the first article about Bitcoin. The currency reached a total capitalization of $10 million.
Since then, bitcoin has experienced several ups and downs. It reached its peak in November 2021, rising to $69,000. In 2022, global economic problems and several major bankruptcies in the industry led to a significant decline in cryptocurrency rates and a protracted cryptowinter.
As of 10:30 a.m. Jan. 3, bitcoin is trading near the $16.7k mark, 75% below its high. The asset has a market capitalization of $322 billion and daily trading volume of $13 billion. Bitcoin's share of the crypto market is 38.2%.
