In just a decade, Bitcoin has grown from being nothing but an open-source math experiment into an international financial powerhouse. Along the way, there have been a number of bitcoin holidays that have led us to where we are today. Let’s look at the most famous days in Bitcoin to see how far we’ve come.
Famous Days In Bitcoin
Bitcoin’s history has been full of all sorts of exciting events over the past decade and beyond. From the publishing of the whitepaper all the way to mining the very first block and sending the first transaction, here are just some of the most famous bitcoin holidays.
The Bitcoin Whitepaper Is Published
On October 31st 2008, The Bitcoin Whitepaper was published by an unknown individual or group of individuals using the pseudonym, Satoshi Nakamoto. Who could have predicted that such an idea would grow into what it is today?
The Bitcoin Genesis Block
On January 3rd, 2009, the first 50 bitcoin came into existence when the very first block of bitcoins were mined. This first block of Bitcoin is known as the Genesis block to mark the beginning of the Bitcoin blockchain.
The Genesis Block marked the first time in history that humans were able to send and receive electronic payments without the need for a centralized third party.
Bitcoin’s First Transaction
On January 12th, 2009, the first bitcoin transaction was sent from one address to another in block 170. These 10 infamous bitcoin were sent from the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto to the recipient Hal Finney.
You can see the transaction here on the blockchain: f4184fc596403b9d638783cf57adfe4c75c605f6356fbc91338530e9831e9e16
Bitcoin Pizza Day
On May 22, 2010, Bitcoin was first used as a medium of exchange when a bitcoin miner made a post in a Bitcoin forum that would go down in history. Laszlo Hanyecz offered to send 10,000 BTC to anyone who would be willing to have 2 pizzas delivered to his New Jersey home. A user located in the UK, was willing to make this trade and placed an online order to have the pizzas delivered to Laszlo.
This infamous purchase marked May 22nd as Bitcoin Pizza Day.
Every year on May 22nd, Bitcoiners all around the world, use Bitcoin to buy pizza and show their love of Bitcoin by wearing pizza related swag, displaying pizza art and sharing bitcoin pizza memes.
The First Block With Fees > Block Subsidy
On December 11th, 2011 we witnessed the very first block, 157077, where the total transaction fees paid by senders was greater than the block subsidy.
As time goes on, this trend is more likely to happen as we shift toward transaction fees becoming a larger portion of the block reward.
The First Halving
On November 28th, 2012, the block subsidy for mining bitcoin was cut in half for the first time in an event commonly known as the halving at block height 210,000. Instead of receiving 50 bitcoin for each new block, miners would now only receive 25 bitcoins. This is one of the most important parts of bitcoin since the halvings are what makes a digitally scarce asset and ensure that bitcoin miners continue to get more and more efficient.
The Second Halving
On July 9th 2016, block 420,000 was mined. This event marked the second time that the Bitcoin block reward was cut in half. For the next 210,000 blocks, bitcoin miners would only receive 12.5 Bitcoin for each new block mined.
If it wasn’t for these halvings, the supply of bitcoin would grow beyond the demand and the price would collapse.
The Rise and Fall Of The Silk Road
In the early days, Bitcoin was quickly adopted by those who would use it to make online purchases that would otherwise be stopped or censored. It was this illicit use of Bitcoin that gave birth to one of the first online drug marketplaces; The Silk Road.
On Silk Road, you could purchase just about any kind of drug that you could imagine. What made this even more valuable to would be drug users is that the free-market nature of the Silk Road provided the highest quality products at the lowest possible prices.
In October of 2013, users of the forbidden site were greeted with an interesting new message upon arriving. “This Hidden Site Has Been Seized”.
It didn’t take long for a new drug marketplaces to launch and the game of cat and mouse to start all over again.
Bitcoin Exchange Hacks
Bitcoin has received a good bit of negative press since its inception. From being used to sell drugs to “being hacked”, Bitcoin has found it difficult to catch much good press coverage. Amongst the worst of this press coverage has been news of bitcoin exchanges being hacked and user funds being lost. Here are just some of those events.
The Mt. Gox Hack
In the early days of Bitcoin, it was much more difficult to buy bitcoin than it is today. Currently, we have all sorts of services that enable users to buy & sell bitcoin all around the world. The first of these services was a Japan based exchange called Mt. Gox.
Mt. Gox actually began as an online store to buy and sell Magic The Gathering playing cards. MTGOX was literally an acronym for Magic The Gathering Online Exchange.
For years, Mt. Gox was the only place to buy and sell Bitcoin. It was this sort of centralization that led to one of the largest hacks in Bitcoin history.
On June 19th 2011, 850,000 Bitcoins went “missing” as the exchange claimed to be the victim of the largest hack in Bitcoin history.
The BitFinex Hack
On August 2nd 2016, the Bitcoin global Bitcoin community received word that yet another exchange had been hacked. This time the hackers claimed more than 119,756 Bitcoins as their prize.
What Bitfinex did differently than other hacked exchanges is that they paid all of their users back by issuing their own token to hold the place of the stolen bitcoin. Over time they were able to buy back these placeholder tokens with real Bitcoin.
1 Bitcoin = $1 USD
On February 9th, 2011, the market price for 1 Bitcoin achieved a valuation of $1 USD which helped to validate it for a number of users around the world. Achieving parity with the US Dollar meant that Bitcoin had grown from an underground cypherpunk experiment to something much more viable.
The First Bitcoin Fork
As Bitcoin has gained more widespread use, the amount of resources required for it to function has increased with it. In order for Bitcoin to scale and allow more users, the size of bitcoin blocks would need to grow beyond the 1-megabyte limit.
Since there has been a lot of controversy about the size of Bitcoin blocks, some have decides to fork Bitcoin into what they believe Bitcoin should be.
On August 1 2017, Bitcoin officially hard forked into two separate blockchains, Bitcoin (BTC) and B-Cash (BCH).
Bitcoin Reaches All Time High Of $19,000+
In December of 2017, Bitcoin was receiving record amounts of media attention. The second Bitcoin halvening happened in mid 2016 which helped to push the price from around $200 up to $1,000 in about 6 months.
With that kind of return, it didn’t take long for Bitcoin to receive all sorts of media attention throughout 2017. This media coverage helped to push Bitcoin further into the spotlight and drive the price even higher. By the end of 2017, Bitcoin was reaching new all time highs almost every week.
On December 17th 2017, Bitcoin hit the all time high on most major exchanges when it reached $19,000+ and even higher on select exchanges in southeast Asia.
Bitcoin Market Cap Surpasses Fiat Currencies
According to an article published in December of 2017, the market capitalization of Bitcoin was larger than Boeing, Warren Buffet and The New Zealand Dollar. This sort of attention really validated Bitcoin’s place in the global finance sector as a force to be reckoned with. The same article cited Bitcoin as having a larger market cap than several other fiat currencies of countries such as Qatar, Kuwait and Hungary.
You can view bitcoin against all of the largest fiat currencies in the world here on Fiat Market Cap. This can actually be a great tool to help you orange pill your friends and family.
Proof Of Keys
In honor of The Genesis Block, a new bitcoin holiday has emerged. Proof Of Keys is a celebration that takes place every year on January 3rd. Proposed by a prominent bitcoiner (at the time) named Trace Mayer, Proof Of Keys aims to increase the number of Bitcoin HODLers.
Instead of keeping your Bitcoin on an exchange or custodial service, you keep them under your control so that you have proof of your own keys. If you don’t control your private keys, you don’t control your bitcoin.
Do you have proof of keys?
Famous Days In Bitcoin’s Future
Not all important days have already happened for Bitcoin. Some famous days are yet to come. Here’s just a few random thoughts that we’ve had about Bitcoin in the future.
The Halving of 2024
One of Bitcoin’s core tenants is its digital scarcity. As time goes on, the supply of new coins will become more scarce.
As it stands right now, block 840,000 is set to be mined on approximately May of 2024. These halving events are what limits Bitcoin’s scarcity and increase the price over time.
The Next All-Time High
Although we don’t know when the next all-time high will be, we do know that at some point in the future, Bitcoin is likely to surpass $63,000 and set a new all time high.
We feel that the market price tends to surge approximately every 210,000 blocks so we anticipate the next all time high to be after the next halving. If you would like to help to support the price of Bitcoin, we’d like to invite you to take The $100 Buy & HODL Challenge.
The Fall of Fiat Currencies
It will take a while for Bitcoin to take over the major fiat currencies but smaller nation states are already struggling to deal with the growth of Bitcoin. There is no way of knowing if or when Bitcoin will cause a fiat currency to collapse. We are looking forward to see if any smaller nation states will find a way to adopt or integrate Bitcoin into their own financial system.
Final Thoughts
Bitcoin’s history has had all sorts of important turning points. It’s gone from being worth $0 as an open-source math experiment all the way to a market cap with a larger valuation than several fiat currencies.
While we cannot be certain of the future price of Bitcoin, we do know that the infrastructure is growing faster than previous years. As more teams and individuals join the ecosystem, there will be many more important days to come that will push new boundaries. Perhaps the lightning network will finally solve the scalability issues. Maybe a nation state will adopt bitcoin and hold it in reserve. We may even find a way to transact bitcoin completely anonymously.
In any case, we’re looking forward to many more famous days in Bitcoin as the ecosystem continues to grow and bring us one step closer to having a free and open financial system.
Did we miss something? What famous days in Bitcoin do you think we should add to this list?
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